Operation Blackout

The media whitewash has begun:

The U.S. government agency leading the rescue efforts after Hurricane Katrina said on Tuesday it does not want the news media to take photographs of the dead as they are recovered from the flooded New Orleans area.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency, heavily criticized for its slow response to the devastation caused by the hurricane, rejected requests from journalists to accompany rescue boats as they went out to search for storm victims.

An agency spokeswoman said space was needed on the rescue boats and that "the recovery of the victims is being treated with dignity and the utmost respect."

These are the guys who prevented the media from photographing the caskets coming back from Iraq. This is part of their normal response plan: hide the bodies, hide the evidence, put on a happy face.

And it doesn't stop with the cameras, looks like they flat-out want the media out of there:

We are in Jefferson Parish, just outside of New Orleans. At the National Guard checkpoint, they are under orders to turn away all media. All of the reporters are turning they're TV trucks around. Things are so bad, Bush is now censoring all reporting from NOLA. The First Amendment sank with the city.

With the military now in charge, I suppose it's no surprise that the media is seen as the enemy; that's standard psy-ops, to control the flow of communication. The PR offensive, however, is crass and disgusting, given the lack of an enemy on the ground, and the surfeit of American bodies lying in the filthy water.