Picture that shocked US

America reacted with shock today as pictures of coffins carrying its Iraq war dead were published for the first time.

The defence department was desperately attempting to recall the pictures today but was too late to prevent them being published over the internet by anti-war campaigners.

And in another breach, a picture taken secretly by an air base worker in Kuwait was printed in the Seattle Times.

It showed 20 coffins, all covered in the Stars and Stripes, being loaded onto a carrier plane.

The combination of official blundering and the flouting of one of America's greatest taboos, which has been written into military rules since 1991, threatened to become a massive public relations disaster for President Bush as his war policy came under increasing strain.

Images of its war dead have been officially discouraged since the the Vietnam War.

Officially the reason is to maintain the dignity of dead soldiers but the policy has been criticised as a way of protecting national morale by sanitising the war.

Journalists have been forbidden from taking pictures at Dover airbase in Delaware where coffins arrive.

The new row erupted amid a heated debate in Congress over calls to send up to 10,000 more troops into Iraq to stabilise the

security situation. In Britain, MoD chiefs were reported to have put 1,700 troops on standby to leave at short notice if the violence gets worse.

US public opinion has turned against the occupation after terrorist bombings and violent clashes with insurgents left almost 100 American servicemen dead in the past three weeks.

In one of the worst outrages, at least 68 people were killed in a massive suicide bomb attack in Basra earlier this week.

The cargo worker who took the picture printed in the Seattle Times was sacked today for the breach. "I lost my job and they let my husband go as well," said Tami Silicio, 50.

Mrs Silicio, who loaded US military cargo at Kuwait International Airport, claimed she took the picture to show how respectfully the victims' remains were being treated.

But it later emerged that an agent has been hired to sell the image around the world.

The picture shows row upon row of flag-draped coffins on a cargo plane. A uniformed guard of honour pays silent tribute to the fallen.

Not since Vietnam has the true cost of war been made so graphically clear to the American public. "So far this month, almost every night we send them home," said Mrs Silicio. "It's tough... very tough."

Until today the Pentagon had succeeded in preventing the publication of images showing the repatriation of the 706 US soldiers killed in Iraq since the start of the war. When he saw the picture-Barry Fitzsimmons of the Seattle Times knew he had been handed dynamite. "I just said wow," he said today. "The picture was something we don't have access to as the media."

News Editor Leon Espinoza added: "It shows the great care taken to honour the fallen soldiers and it can't help but show the toll a war takes."

The Seattle Times knew it was risking the wrath of the Bush administration if it went ahead and published Mrs Silicio's photographs. The Pentagon immediately said it had "very specific concerns" about their use.

But it has since been reproduced on websites and sparked a fierce debate about the terrible impact of the war on hundred of young American soldiers and their families.

The subsequent sacking of Mrs Silicio and her husband David Landry by the contractor employed to handle the return of the dead, Maytag Aircraft, has not silenced the voices questioning whether the sacrifice of so many Americans is worth it.

Mrs Silicio, who lost her own son to a brain tumour at the age of 19, said: "It kind of helps me to know what these mothers are going through, and I try to watch over their children as they head home." During the dark days of Vietnam every small town in the US had to endure the sight of the dead in their coffins and the maimed on their crutches but until now Mr Bush had hoped to avoid such searing image dogging his Presidency.

"This photo serves a journalistic purpose in causing the public to question the occupation of Iraq," said Kelly McBride, a member of the Poynter Institute US media think-tank. The harm this photo causes is not to the families of those killed in Iraq, but to the administration."

Mrs Silicio's simple of act of recording what she did and what she saw every day has finally lifted the veil of secrecy the Pentagon had till now draped over the coffins coming home.

The other photographs which were published on the internet were originally released by the US air force to campaigners who made an application under Freedom of Information laws.

But the defence department furiously rebuked the officials responsible and attempted to ban further distribution.

John Molino, a deputy undersecretary of defence who oversees the policy, said it was to protect the privacy and dignity of the dead. "To be very frank with you, we don't want the remains of our service members who have made the ultimate sacrifice to be the subject of any kind of attention that is unwarranted or undignified," he said.