This Week in Human Rights: A Picture for 4,252 Lives

4,252 is the number of U.S. service men and women who have been killed in Iraq since the U.S. invasion in March 2003. For many, this number represents a tragic personal loss - a father, a brother, a sister, or a wife who won't be coming home.

Earlier this week, President Obama lifted the ban on allowing photographers and the press access to Dover Air Force Base, where coffins of the fallen are taken, effectively changing a policy that has been in place for over eighteen years.

Here at UUSC, we often talk about the full cost of the Iraq war, not just in dollars, though that is important, but the actual human cost. We hear from military families and veterans, our partners, about the toll that the fighting in Iraq has taken. We hear personal stories from those who have come home and from families forced to adjust to living without a loved one who won't be returning.

All of these stories are critical to documenting the cost of the Iraq war.

Now with the ban lifted at Dover Air Force Base, we will have one more way to show just how costly this war has become.

People say that a picture is worth a thousand words. It's never been truer than right now.