[R-G] Private Military Contractors Writing the News? The Pentagon's Propaganda at Its Worst

Fri Oct 17 16:04:37 MDT 2008

Private Military Contractors Writing the News? The Pentagon's  
Propaganda at Its Worst
By Liliana Segura, AlterNet
Posted on October 17, 2008, Printed on October 17, 2008
http://www.alternet.org/story/103345/

Less than a week after the Washington Post reported that the  
Department of Defense will pay private contractors $300 million over  
the next three years to "produce news stories, entertainment programs  
and public service advertisements for the Iraqi media in an effort to  
'engage and inspire' the local population to support U.S. objectives  
and the Iraqi government," Virginia Sen. Jim Webb wrote a strongly  
worded letter to Defense Secretary Robert Gates. "I have serious  
reservations about the need for this expenditure in today's political  
and economic environment," he wrote. "Consequently, I am asking that  
you put these contracts on hold until the Armed Services Committee and  
the next administration can review the entire issue of U.S. propaganda  
efforts inside Iraq."

Such a review, if it were to happen, would be a formidable  
undertaking, one that would have to start with the declaration of the  
"War on Terror" itself. It's a project the Bush administration has  
always approached as a PR campaign as much as a military one. Who can  
forget former White House Chief of Staff Andy Card's explanation for  
the need to introduce the Iraq War to Americans in September: "From a  
marketing point of view, you don't introduce new products in August."  
And remember the short-lived attempt by administration officials to re- 
brand the "War on Terror" by renaming it the "Global Struggle Against  
Violent Extremism"? (Reports at the time were that administration  
officials worried that the original phrase "may have outlived its  
usefulness," due to its sole focus on military might.)

Regardless of what you call it, the so-called "War on Terror" has cost  
American taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars in propaganda costs  
alone. As with so much of modern war-making, most of this work is  
carried out by private military contractors. With the word  
"Halliburton" now shorthand for waste, fraud and abuse for many  
Americans, taxpayers' tolerance for war profiteering has reached new  
lows -- especially when private military companies operating with no  
oversight undermine the very "hearts and minds" that mission  
propaganda is supposedly meant to advance.

Selling the War to Americans

Perhaps one of the Bush administration's most egregious PR  
undertakings in the war on Iraq was revealed this spring, when the New  
York Times blew the lid off the Pentagon's military analyst program,  
in which more than 75 retired military officials were recruited to  
spout pro-war rhetoric on major networks in the run-up to the invasion  
of Iraq. These "message force multipliers," as they were branded, were  
provided with thousands of talking points by the Department of Defense  
starting in 2002. In one memo, dated Dec. 9, 2002 and titled  
"Department of Defense Themes and Talking Points on Iraq," a quote  
from Paul Wolfowitz -- "We cannot allow one of the world's most  
murderous dictators to provide terrorists a sanctuary in Iraq" -- was  
followed with a bullet point: "Saddam Hussein: A Global Threat."

The investigative piece by the Times said the project "continues to  
this day," seeking to "exploit ideological and military allegiances,  
and also a powerful financial dynamic: Most of the analysts have ties  
to military contractors vested in the very war policies they are asked  
to assess on air."

"Records and interviews show how the Bush administration has used its  
control over access and information in an effort to transform the  
analysts into a kind of media Trojan horse -- an instrument intended  
to shape terrorism coverage from inside the major TV and radio  
networks." It would be hard to overstate the implications of such a  
program, particularly for a country that claims to be a beacon of  
democracy.

Although the Pentagon was said to have suspended its PR briefings of  
retired military officials shortly after the Times story broke, since  
claiming that its inspector general is conducting an investigation, in  
reality there has been precious little fallout. However, in one  
promising move, earlier this month, the Federal Communications  
Commission sent five letters of inquiry to TV military analysts in an  
apparent probing of the program. According to one report, "at issue is  
that some of them were also linked to Pentagon contracts, raising the  
issue of conflict of interest. In its letter signed by the chief of  
the investigations and hearings division enforcement bureau, the FCC  
suggests that TV stations and networks may have violated two sections  
of the Communications Act of 1934 by not identifying the ties to the  
Pentagon that their military analysts had." Diane Farsetta at PR  
Watch, who has written extensively on the Pentagon's pundits,  
particularly their work on behalf of defense contractors, says, "the  
good news is that that's (a first) step toward conducting an  
investigation."

Profiting off the "War of Ideas"

Beyond the Pentagon's pundit "scandal," the fact that propaganda  
contracts continue to be awarded to the very companies that have  
previously been implicated in ethical breaches for disseminating  
unattributed U.S. propaganda abroad is reason enough to renew alarm.  
More than the dollar amount, what is outrageous to Farsetta about the  
most recent propaganda contract is that it is "blatantly illegal." "If  
you look at this most recent contract," she explains, "one of the  
'strategic audiences' is U.S. audiences." According to federal law  
going back to World War II, she says "no taxpayer money can go to  
propagandize U.S. audiences."

The Washington Post story describes the contract as the latest in a  
series of cutting-edge PR initiatives undertaken since 2003 that  
represent a revolution in what it calls "the military's role in the  
war of ideas." "Iraq, where hundreds of millions of dollars have been  
spent on such contracts, has been the proving ground for the  
transformation."

     "The tools they're using, the means, the robustness of this  
activity has just skyrocketed since 2003. In the past, a lot of this  
stuff was just some guy's dreams,'" said a senior U.S. military  
official, one of several who discussed the sensitive defense program  
on the condition of anonymity.

     The Pentagon still sometimes feels it is playing catch-up in a  
propaganda market dominated by al Qaeda, whose media operations  
include sophisticated Web sites and professionally produced videos and  
audios featuring Osama bin Laden and his lieutenants. "We're being out- 
communicated by a guy in a cave," Secretary Robert M. Gates often  
remarks.

The new contract was awarded to four companies, most of whom Farsetta  
refers to as "the usual suspects," including Lincoln Group, the  
Pennsylvania Avenue company that in 2005 was found to have planted  
articles written by U.S. military officials in Iraqi newspapers  
without attribution. (Although the group was cleared of any  
illegalities, even then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld recognized  
the potential breach, remarking, "Gee, that's not what we ought to be  
doing."

Selling the War to Iraqis

The main target audience for the $300 million contract is Iraqis. But,  
different from earlier propaganda efforts, the content is not simply  
meant to convince them of the noble intentions of their American  
occupiers. "Originally, the major focus was all about the U.S.," says  
Farsetta. "The message then was, 'Hey, you're free now,' but over time  
it has shifted to more 'make sure you support your own government,  
your own police.'"

Indeed, the Washington Post quoted an unnamed official who described  
one component of the program:

     "There's a video piece produced by a contractor showing a family  
being attacked by a group of bad guys, and their daughter being taken  
off. The message is: You've got to stand up against the enemy." The  
professionally produced vignette, he said, "is offered for airing on  
various (television) stations in Iraq. They don't know that the  
originator of the content is the U.S. government. If they did, they  
would never run anything.

     "If you asked most Iraqis," he said, "they would say, 'It came  
from the government, our own government.'"

A pretty blunt admission, to be sure, and one that lays bare the  
dubious ethical nature of the program (not to mention the extent that  
the military recognizes Iraqis' antipathy for the U.S. government).  
But it's not the first time the U.S. government has sought to play  
hand puppet with Iraqi media. Last spring, the NSA obtained and made  
public a document, along with a PowerPoint presentation, that revealed  
the Pentagon's plans in the run-up to the war to create a "Rapid  
Reaction Media Team." Jim Lobe, D.C. bureau chief of InterPress  
Services, covered the revelation in May 2007; as he wrote, the  
proposal was for a "six-month, $51 million budget for the RRMT  
operation, apparently the first phase in a one- to two-year 'strategic  
information campaign'":

     Among other items, the budget called for the hiring of two U.S.  
''media consultants'' who were to be paid $140,000 each for six  
months' work. A further $800,000 were to be paid for six Iraqi "media  
consultants" over the same period.

     Both the paper and the slide presentation were prepared by two  
Pentagon offices -- Special Operations and Low-Intensity Conflict,  
which, among other things, specialize in psychological warfare, and  
the Office of Special Plans under then undersecretary of defense for  
policy, Douglas Feith -- in mid-January, 2003, two months before the  
invasion, according to NSA analyst Joyce Battle.

     ''The RRMT concept focuses on USG-UK pre- and post-hostilities  
efforts to develop programming, train talent, and rapidly deploy a  
team of U.S./UK media experts with a team of 'hand selected' Iraqi  
media experts to communicate immediately with the Iraqi public opinion  
upon liberation of Iraq,'' according to the paper.

     The ''hand-picked'' Iraqi experts, according to the paper, would  
provide planning and program guidance for the U.S. experts and help  
''select and train the Iraqi broadcasters and publishers ('the face')  
for the USG/coalition sponsored information effort.'' USG is an  
abbreviation for U.S. government.

In a rather extraordinary quote, the document boasted, ''It will be as  
if, after another day of deadly agit-prop, the North Korean people  
turned off their TVs at night, and turned them on in the morning to  
find the rich fare of South Korean TV spread before them as their very  
own."

Circumventing Congress

In the United States, few lawmakers have had a chance to scrutinize  
this latest deployment of public funds for propaganda. (Like so many  
other contracts awarded to private defense corporations, this one was  
awarded with no Congressional approval.) But Webb's letter to Defense  
Secretary Robert Gates suggests that it could become an issue.

     At a time when this country is facing such a grave economic  
crisis, and at a time when the government of Iraq now shows at least a  
$79 billion surplus from recent oil revenues, in my view it makes  
little sense for the U.S. Department of Defense to be spending  
hundreds of millions of dollars to propagandize the Iraqi people.  
There is now an elected government in Iraq, which is recognized to  
have the power and authority to negotiate a long-term security  
agreement with the government of the United States. Clearly that  
government is capable, both politically and financially, of  
communicating with its own people in the manner now contemplated by  
these DOD contracts -- and without being accused by adversaries of  
being a foreign government that is fulminating internal conditions  
through propaganda.

Laudable as his efforts to reign in contractors may be -- much of  
Webb's letter was devoted to military contractors more generally, and  
Blackwater specifically -- his letter made no mention of the myriad  
ethical questions raised by the propaganda contract. To name a few,  
says Farsetta, "the fact that the media produced is overwhelmingly not  
attributed to the U.S. government;" "the fact that one of the  
'strategic audiences' listed in the contract is 'U.S. audiences,' in  
apparent violation of U.S. law;" and "the difficulties in holding  
private contractors operating in war zones accountable to any standard  
(ethical, performance or otherwise)."

Webb, who first learned about this contract as did most Americans,  
from the Washington Post, has called for a thorough review of the  
Pentagon's "strategic communications" initiatives, including  
Congressional hearings." Were this to happen, says Farsetta, "I would  
love for those hearings to include representatives from foreign  
governments and civil society groups where the U.S. has major  
propaganda operations, including Iraq and Afghanistan. The heads of  
firms like the Lincoln Group, L-3 and Rendon should also testify,  
under oath."

But, she says, "What really bothers me is that Webb's using the "we've  
given Iraq so much and now it's time for them to step up" argument.  
That argument never fails to amaze and anger me. We bombed them in  
1991, then for more than a decade placed them under such devastating  
sanctions that hundreds of thousands of children died, then bombed  
them more ferociously over a longer period of time. Yet some  
politicians have the gall to complain that the Iraqis aren't doing  
enough now? That's not to mention that the argument assumes that Iraqi  
leaders have the same priorities as U.S. officials. Personally, I say  
we need to get our propaganda and troops out of Iraq and pay them  
reparations."