John at OpFor’s reaction is typically sharp:

There is no word in any of the world’s languages that can effectively capture the pure stupidity of this decision. Political fights need political warriors. And make no mistake, this war is a political fight. It’s like stripping the Army of tanks before they’re supposed to invade Germany.

More from NRO’s own Steve Schippert. Ed Morrissey walks through the arguments for and against. I’d be more sympathetic to the Army’s decision if I hadn’t read Michael Yon’s accounts CENTCOM’s multiple failures on the public-affairs front. As Yon writes, “If half this battle is being fought in the media, why isn’t one-tenth of one-tenth of one tenth of one-tenth of the budget spent on that half of the war?”

So at the same time that CENTCOM’s bungling is making it harder for journalists to tell our soldiers’ stories, the Army is making it harder for soldiers to tell their own stories. That hardly sounds like a formula for winning the battle of ideas. Yon again:

Who suffers? Firstly, we are losing the war in part because we are losing public support for it. We are losing public support for it in part because there are so few reports that demonstrate enough progress being made and enough reasons to continue to fight until Iraqis are able to go it alone. Secondly, the soldiers suffer because their stories are not being told.

Blackfive suggests restricting milbloggers to the same rules that apply to embed reporters. It’s hard to see why that wouldn’t be the better option.