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The pictures, of the kind readily seen in the media in the UK, were revealed on the US site yesterday after the US Air Force relaxed the ban.

, which campaigns against US government secrecy, published 361 pictures taken by military photographers of bodies arriving at the USAF Dover base in Delaware, where most American dead are flown.

The decision to release the photos came after The Memory Hole filed a request under the Freedom of Information Act last year seeking any pictures of coffins arriving from Iraq.

The release of the pictures was not supported by the Pentagon, which called the decision a mistake. US administrations, particularly the current Bush one, are nervous of such images appearing in the media and have fought hard to preserve the ban, which has been in place since the first Gulf War.

Earlier this week two contractor workers were sacked by the Pentagon for taking pictures of coffins being loaded aboard transport aircraft in Kuwait. The pictures later appeared in The Seattle Times on Sunday.

The Pentagon and the Bush administration argue that the ban is not a political one, but one for the families of those killed. With the US suffering some of its worse losses since the war in Iraq last year, the Pentagon seems keener than ever to keep the ban in place.

"The President believes that we should always honour and show respect for those who have made the ultimate sacrifice defending our freedoms," Scott McClellan, the White House press secretary, said last night.

The Bush policy is at odds with what happened under Bill Clinton's administration. The then President, on a number of occasions, was filmed at such homecomings.

The policy is also at odds with the general feelings of many Americans. According to a recent New York Times/CBS News poll, 62% percent of Americans said the public should be allowed to see images of coffins of soldiers killed in Iraq arriving home escorted by a guard of honour.

This morning pictures appeared across the US media, which reacted with surprise to their release, with many saying they did not even know the US military was taking pictures of the coffins as they arrived home.

Bill Keller, executive editor of The New York Times, said: "We were not aware at all that these photos were being taken."

John Banner, the executive producer of ABC's 'World News Tonight', said it would have filed its own Freedom of Information request had it known the pictures were available.

"This was the first we had known that the military was shooting these pictures," he said.

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