News organizations are in an awkward position when it comes to telling and showing the real costs of war. Every newspaper, news magazine and TV news operation's mission is to tell the truth and not pull any punches.

But when it comes to the war in Iraq, that goal is difficult to reach.

The fact is, more than 30 U.S. soldiers have been killed in Iraq just since the first of this month. In all, more than 1,700 U.S. military personnel have lost their lives in Iraq since the March 2003 invasion, and close to 13,000 have been wounded.

Do the numbers surprise you? They shouldn't. The combat toll has been widely reported in every U.S. newspaper - including this one - since the war began.

What readers and TV viewers aren't seeing a lot of is the actual loss of life. There are a host of reasons why you don't see the photos and video of combat fatalities and injuries, mostly because the Bush administration and Pentagon officials would rather you not see them.

And when news outlets make the effort to put a real, horrifying face on the war, the outcome isn't always universally accepted. Editors at the Star-Ledger in Newark, N.J., learned that lesson the hard way last month when they ran a photo of a fatally wounded Army private. After the photo appeared, the Star-Ledger's editors took a thorough tongue-lashing from readers, who accused the newspaper of being crass, insensitive and even unpatriotic.

Editors at the Los Angeles Times recently completed a survey of several major newspapers and two of the nation's largest news magazines to see how other editors were handling the reporting of the war. They found that although the death toll was being dutifully reported, there was scant photographic evidence that American men and women are being killed in a war that seems to have no end. Whatever purpose Americans found in the conflict at first has now all but disappeared.

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The Times' survey looked at the first six months of this year, a period during which 559 American solders lost their lives, but found only a handful of published photographs to back up that toll. During the same period, thousands of U.S, soldiers were injured, but only 44 photos of their plight were published.

Mothers and father, husbands and wives, sisters and brothers don't want to see such graphic evidence of the dangers their loved ones in Iraq are facing. It is a form of denial designed to protect the emotional well-being of those at home. It is also a strategy that prevents Americans from seeing the true costs of war. Reading about four Marines being killed by a roadside bomb has far less emotional impact than seeing a photo of a ripped and torn Humvee with the shattered bodies of our men and women inside.

But even some of our most conservative politicians have had enough of this war. This past weekend, Rep. Walter B. Jones, whose district includes the Marine Corps training base at Camp Lejeune, N.C., said he would introduce legislation to set a firm timetable for the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq.

Jones is a conservative Republican who fully and enthusiastically supported the October 2002 resolution authorizing the use of military force against Iraq. He told ABC News that "we've done about as much as we can do" in that country. Jones also is the politician who led the effort in early 2003 to rename French fries "freedom fries" after France refused to support the invasion. It is evident that his sympathies and support have been for the Bush administration, a position his pending legislation would effectively eliminate.

That's because the Bush administration is opposed to setting a timetable for withdrawal, arguing that such an act would only play into insurgents' hands and make them more resolute. Jones correctly counters that the Iraqi people, after they're trained, should fight and defend their own country, a perspective now shared by an increasing number of Americans.

War is an ugly business, and something many Americans would prefer not to think about - and certainly not be subjected to a daily barrage of war-zone photos and TV video showing America's sons and daughters dying in the field.

With or without the photos and video, public sentiment is turning against the war in Iraq. America needs a strategy and a timetable for getting out.

June 15, 2005