Barack Obama Meets Coffins of Soldiers Killed in Afghanistan
The total of 55 US troops killed in Afghanistan this month have made it the deadliest month in the eight-year war. The US military has endured a brutal few months, testing the nation's resolve to pursue a war that Obama says is essential for its security. In all, 902 US troops and 222 British troops have died in the war.Under George Bush, who launched the conflict in retaliation for the terrorist 9/11 attacks, news media were barred from observing the return of fallen troops through Dover airbase.
The Pentagon said the measure, in place since the administration George Bush Sr, guarded the families' privacy, but critics claimed the government was trying to obscure the conflict's human toll.
Obama overturned the ban this year, and allowed the families to choose whether to allow media coverage . Bush spent time with grieving military families but never went to Dover.
Shortly after midnight, Obama joined a party of White House aides, military leaders and his attorney general, Eric Holder, on the tarmac at th
