Here we go again! Just when you thought the lies have stopped, they start anew! Where is Jeff Gannon on this one? Maybe he snagged a job in Bagdad! Enjoy Bush sheep!


http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationw...1,6241053.story

From the Los Angeles Times


THE CONFLICT IN IRAQ

U.S. military covertly pays to run stories in Iraqi press
Troops write articles presented as news reports. Some officers object to the practice


By Mark Mazzetti and Borzou Daragahi
Times Staff Writers

November 30, 2005

WASHINGTON -- As part of an information offensive in Iraq, the U.S. military is secretly paying Iraqi newspapers to publish stories written by American troops in an effort to burnish the image of the U.S. mission in Iraq.

The articles, written by U.S. military "information operations" troops, are translated into Arabic and placed in Baghdad newspapers with the help of a defense contractor, according to U.S. military officials and documents obtained by the Los Angeles Times.

Many of the articles are presented in the Iraqi press as unbiased news accounts written and reported by independent journalists. The stories trumpet the work of U.S. and Iraqi troops, denounce insurgents and tout U.S.-led efforts to rebuild the country.

Though the articles are basically factual, they present only one side of events and omit information that might reflect poorly on the U.S. or Iraqi governments, officials said. Records and interviews indicate that the U.S. has paid Iraqi newspapers to run dozens of such articles, with headlines such as "Iraqis Insist on Living Despite Terrorism," since the effort began this year.

The operation is designed to mask any connection with the U.S. military. The Pentagon has a contract with a small Washington-based firm called Lincoln Group, which helps translate and place the stories. The Lincoln Group's Iraqi staff, or its subcontractors, sometimes pose as freelance reporters or advertising executives when they deliver the stories to Baghdad media outlets.

The military's effort to disseminate propaganda in the Iraqi media is taking place even as U.S. officials are pledging to promote democratic principles, political transparency and freedom of speech in a country emerging from decades of dictatorship and corruption.

It comes as the State Department is training Iraqi reporters in basic journalism skills and Western media ethics, including one workshop titled "The Role of Press in a Democratic Society." Standards vary widely at Iraqi newspapers, many of which are shoestring operations.

Underscoring the importance U.S. officials place on development of a Western-style media, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld on Tuesday cited the proliferation of news organizations in Iraq as one of the country's great successes since the ouster of President Saddam Hussein. The hundreds of newspapers, television stations and other "free media" offer a "relief valve" for the Iraqi public to debate the issues of their burgeoning democracy, Rumsfeld said.

The military's information operations campaign has sparked a backlash among some senior military officers in Iraq and at the Pentagon who argue that attempts to subvert the news media could destroy the U.S. military's credibility in other nations and with the American public.

"Here we are trying to create the principles of democracy in Iraq. Every speech we give in that country is about democracy. And we're breaking all the first principles of democracy when we're doing it," said a senior Pentagon official who opposes the practice of planting stories in the Iraqi media.

The arrangement with Lincoln Group is evidence of how far the Pentagon has moved to blur the traditional boundaries between military public affairs — the dissemination of factual information to the media — and psychological and information operations, which use propaganda and sometimes misleading information to advance the objectives of a military campaign.

The Bush administration has come under criticism for distributing video and news stories in the United States without identifying the federal government as their source and for paying American journalists to promote administration policies, practices the Government Accountability Office has labeled "covert propaganda."

Military officials familiar with the effort in Iraq said much of it was being directed by the "Information Operations Task Force" in Baghdad, part of the multinational corps headquarters commanded by Army Lt. Gen. John R. Vines. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were critical of the effort and were not authorized to speak publicly about it.

A spokesman for Vines declined to comment for this article. A Lincoln Group spokesman also declined to comment.

One of the military officials said that, as part of a psychological operations campaign that has intensified over the last year, the task force also had purchased an Iraqi newspaper and taken control of a radio station, and was using them to channel pro-American messages to the Iraqi public. Neither is identified as a military mouthpiece.

The official would not disclose which newspaper and radio station are under U.S. control, saying that naming them would put their employees at risk of insurgent attacks.

U.S. law forbids the military from carrying out psychological operations or planting propaganda through American media outlets. Yet several officials said that given the globalization of media driven by the Internet and the 24-hour news cycle, the Pentagon's efforts were carried out with the knowledge that coverage in the foreign press inevitably "bleeds" into the Western media and influences coverage in U.S. news outlets.

"There is no longer any way to separate foreign media from domestic media. Those neat lines don't exist anymore," said one private contractor who does information operations work for the Pentagon.

Daniel Kuehl, an information operations expert at National Defense University at Ft. McNair in Washington, said that he did not believe that planting stories in Iraqi media was wrong. But he questioned whether the practice would help turn the Iraqi public against the insurgency.

"I don't think that there's anything evil or morally wrong with it," he said. "I just question whether it's effective."

One senior military official who spent this year in Iraq said it was the strong pro-U.S. message in some news stories in Baghdad that first made him suspect that the American military was planting articles.

"Stuff would show up in the Iraqi press, and I would ask, 'Where the hell did that come from?' It was clearly not something that indigenous Iraqi press would have conceived of on their own," the official said.

Iraqi newspaper editors reacted with a mixture of shock and shrugs when told they were targets of a U.S. military psychological operation.

Some of the newspapers, such as Al Mutamar, a Baghdad-based daily run by associates of Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Chalabi, ran the articles as news stories, indistinguishable from other news reports. Before the war, Chalabi was the Iraqi exile favored by senior Pentagon officials to lead post-Hussein Iraq.

Others labeled the stories as "advertising," shaded them in gray boxes or used a special typeface to distinguish them from standard editorial content. But none mentioned any connection to the U.S. military.

One Aug. 6 piece, published prominently on Al Mutamar's second page, ran as a news story with the headline "Iraqis Insist on Living Despite Terrorism." Documents obtained by The Times indicated that Al Mutamar was paid about $50 to run the story, though the editor of the paper said he ran such articles for free.

Nearly $1,500 was paid to the independent Addustour newspaper to run an Aug. 2 article titled "More Money Goes to Iraq's Development," the records indicated. The newspaper's editor, Bassem Sheikh, said he had "no idea" where the piece came from but added the note "media services" on top of the article to distinguish it from other editorial content.

The U.S. military-written articles come in to Al Mutamar, the newspaper run by Chalabi's associates, via the Internet and are often unsigned, said Luay Baldawi, the paper's editor in chief.

"We publish anything," he said. "The paper's policy is to publish everything, especially if it praises causes we believe in. We are pro-American. Everything that supports America we will publish."

Yet other Al Mutamar employees were much less supportive of their paper's connection with the U.S. military. "This is not right," said Faleh Hassan, an editor. "It reflects the tragic condition of journalists in Iraq. Journalism in Iraq is in very bad shape."

Ultimately, Baldawi acknowledged that he, too, was concerned about the origin of the articles and pledged to be "more careful about stuff we get by e-mail."

After he learned of the source of three paid stories that ran in Al Mada in July, that newspaper's managing editor, Abdul Zahra Zaki, was outraged, immediately summoning a manager of the advertising department to his office.

"I'm very sad," he said. "We have to investigate."

The Iraqis who delivered the articles also reaped modest profits from the arrangements, according to sources and records.

Employees at Al Mada said that a low-key man arrived at the newspaper's offices in downtown Baghdad on July 30 with a large wad of U.S. dollars. He told the editors that he wanted to publish an article titled "Terrorists Attack Sunni Volunteers" in the newspaper.

He paid cash and left no calling card, employees said. He did not want a receipt. The name he gave employees was the same as that of a Lincoln Group worker in the records obtained by The Times. Although editors at Al Mada said he paid $900 to place the article, records show that the man told Lincoln Group that he gave more than $1,200 to the paper.

Al Mada is widely considered the most cerebral and professional of Iraqi newspapers, publishing investigative reports as well as poetry.

Zaki said that if his cash-strapped paper had known that these stories were from the U.S. government, he would have "charged much, much more" to publish them.

According to several sources, the process for placing the stories begins when soldiers write "storyboards" of events in Iraq, such as a joint U.S.-Iraqi raid on a suspected insurgent hide-out, or a suicide bomb that killed Iraqi civilians.

The storyboards, several of which were obtained by The Times, read more like press releases than news stories. They often contain anonymous quotes from U.S. military officials; it is unclear whether the quotes are authentic.

"Absolute truth was not an essential element of these stories," said the senior military official who spent this year in Iraq.

One of the storyboards, dated Nov. 12, describes a U.S.-Iraqi offensive in the western Iraqi towns of Karabilah and Husaybah.

"Both cities are stopping points for foreign fighters entering Iraq to wage their unjust war," the storyboard reads.

It continues with a quote from an anonymous U.S. military official: " 'Iraqi army soldiers and U.S. forces have begun clear-and-hold operations in the city of Karabilah near Husaybah town, close to the Syrian border,' said a military official once operations began."

Another storyboard, written on the same date, describes the capture of an insurgent bomb-maker in Baghdad. "As the people and the [Iraqi security forces] work together, Iraq will finally drive terrorism out of Iraq for good," it concludes.

It was unclear whether those two storyboards have made their way into Iraqi newspapers.

A debate over the Pentagon's handling of information has raged since shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks.

In 2002, the Pentagon was forced to shut down its Office of Strategic Influence, which had been created the previous year, after reports surfaced that it intended to plant false news stories in the international media.

For much of 2005, a Defense Department working group has been trying to forge a policy about the proper role of information operations in wartime. Pentagon officials say the group has yet to resolve the often-contentious debate in the department about the boundaries between military public affairs and information operations.

Lincoln Group, formerly known as Iraqex, is one of several companies hired by the U.S. military to carry out "strategic communications" in countries where large numbers of U.S. troops are based.

Some of Lincoln Group's work in Iraq is very public, such as an animated public service campaign on Iraqi television that spotlights the Iraqi civilians killed by roadside bombs planted by insurgents.

Besides its contract with the military in Iraq, Lincoln Group this year won a major contract with U.S. Special Operations Command, based in Tampa, to develop a strategic communications campaign in concert with special operations troops stationed around the globe. The contract is worth up to $100 million over five years, although U.S. military officials said they doubted the Pentagon would spend the full amount of the contract.

*


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Mazzetti reported from Washington and Daragahi reported from Baghdad.


Copyright © 2005, The Los Angeles Times

And this is surprising? An administration that is certain it speaks for God would have no qualms about doing the same for the press. The large media companies have long compromised their standing as a Fourth Estate and though I find slogan as a Fifth Estate clever, it is the internet that has taken on that role as a spokesperson for the "proletariat". We are their stumbling block.

[ December 01, 2005, 04:08 AM: Message edited by: sportinlife ]

Hey why not...they pay the press here.

Note that there are two Lincoln Groups on the Internets. One is a dot org, and the other is a dot com. The one involved in this story is the dot com.

Lincoln Group dot com

To look at the cast of characters go here and scroll about halfway down the page.

[ December 01, 2005, 07:06 AM: Message edited by: twin58 ]

I guess this means Armstrong Williams will be headed to Iraq.

Remember this is the same administration that was cited by the GAO for violations of federal propaganda law not only with Armstrong Williams and several other commentators, but also with placing pro-government ads, masquerading as news reports, with local TV stations. None of it is surprising. We are approaching the zenith of the Orwellian scenario that these anti-democratic, propagandistic, fanatical shysters have sought to achieve, and until we can pull ourselves together as a nation and say enough is enough, not only will such things keep happening, but they'll grow even worse.

not that I'm surprised about this, just can't wait for what is next out of this administration. This administration has taken all that was good about America and showed the world that we are no better than our unmoral, evil enemies. No wonder the world questions the motives of Bush, his administration and to a lesser degree, us, the Americans.

What ever happened to those "moral values" and honor and dignity that was promised?

This president has made this veteran less proud of my country and myself as an American.

Cadillac, I still appreciate what you have done for this nation. Don't let the bozo in office diminish your pride for this nation. It's still great, just a bit misguided with the current clown in office.

This probably isnt the kind of press Bush would want to pay for.....CIA and abductions. European Union investigates. BBC - Europe investigates CIA Abductions

What's the big deal? POW's are one thing, but when you're talking about terrorists, they have no protections whatsoever under the Geneva Convention, nor should they. They are not warriors, they are not criminals. They deserve neither access to our courts nor protections typical war prisoners would otherwise receive.

Abduct them and interrogate them to find out whatever we can.

Hey, MIB, why stop there? Maybe we should go after their families and chop off their hands...or maybe multiple rapings is more your speed. See, the problem is we become as bad as Saddam when we start crap like this. Is this your definition of democracy?

Also, the US abducted at least one innocent person and handed him over to be tortured. And for what? Kindasleezzy Rice actually almost admitted that the US had made a mistake. An Ethiopian student is now saying he also was wrongly abducted and tortured. So despite the fact that this is illegal activity, if the US is getting the abductees wrong even a few times, this is just an insane policy (though not surprising coming from this administration).

On top of which, it's insane to be abducting citizens of ALLY nations (which would include all the countries of the EU) and handing them over to nations where they could be tortured. If the US suspects that a German or Italian or French or British citizen might be involved in terrorist activities, usually our country works with those nations to address the problem.

Would YOU want to be abducted off the streets of Chicago or its suburbs by Mexican or Canadian or, God forbid, Saudi intelligence agents in the US, flown to some hell-hole like Uzbekistan or Moldova, tortured for, oh, three years, and then returned when the Saudis realized that they were after a different Chicago-based "jurist" who had children? I think we all know the answer is NO.

[ December 13, 2005, 09:52 PM: Message edited by: fantomas ]

I'm referring more specifically to terrorists, and I repeat, these slimeballs do not possess the same protections that typical POW's or war criminals possess. As a result, we are not and must not be constrained by the same laws that would protect normal POW's.

Well I suppose some people might question this as an example of American democracy, rights and freedoms , that the administration wishes to export around the world. Of course it does infringe on the sovereignty of nations which are supposed to be allied with the US and now will have to investigate and explain such actions to their own citizens. Hey, maybe democracy and civil rights and the rule of law are just quaint ideas. Many people will look at this as another case of "Do as I say. not as I do", and they wouldnt be wrong.

Terrorists? How do you know? They have never been charged with, let alone convicted of, any crime. Does simply being arrested mean one is guilty now? Is that the democracy we so value?

Now you're just sounding silly.

They don't wear uniforms. They don't fight for any organized, governmentally-sanctioned country. They target and murder innocent civilians. These are terrorists and nothing less. The fact that you cannot comprehend the difference is appalling.

[ December 15, 2005, 11:54 AM: Message edited by: MIB ]

MIB -- You are the one who is sounding silly... or do you not pay attention to the news? No one is saying terrorists aren't horrible people... But when you get into holding people in secret prisons, you get cases like you had in Germany... Where the CIA abducted a German citizen from Macedonia and held him in a secret prison in Afghanistan for FIVE MONTHS before being released because he wasn't the right guy... (His name is Khaled al-Masri if you don't belive me -- I'm sure Fox News has said nothing about it)... The guy alleges torture, too.

So basically, you are saying that this is ok... Abduct anyone you want, assume they are evil, torture them and keep them from their family for five months and sort out the details later? It's one thing to say who cares about the terrorists, but the bototm line is that the government has no idea who every potential terrorist is. And we have a system in place so that stuff like this DOESN'T happen. This is what happens when we don't follow it.

[ December 17, 2005, 09:11 AM: Message edited by: laxmanmd ]

>>>They don't wear uniforms. They don't fight for any organized, governmentally-sanctioned country. They target and murder innocent civilians. These are terrorists and nothing less. The fact that you cannot comprehend the difference is appalling.

But who do you classify as a "terrorist"? If you have undeniable proof that a person performed a terrorist act, fine, that guy's a terrorist, and fair game for torture or whatever else you want.

What about a known terrorist's brother?
What about a guy who was at a terrorist group meeting last year?
What about a guy who has a pamphlet in his home?
What about a guy who is "rumored to have ties to a terrorist group"?
What about a guy who argues against the presence of Americans in his country?

I can easily imagine any of these people to be considered to be terrorists. Should all these folks be considered fair game?

LXN