XPost: uk.politics.misc, uk.current-events.terrorism, alt.conspiracy   
   XPost: alt.conspiracy.new-world-order, alt.conspiracy.america-at-war,   
   alt.politics.british   
   XPost: uk.local.london, uk.media, alt.politics.british   
   From: o@o.org   
      
   It's propaganda (shock, horror)!   
   By David Isenberg   
      
   The news of a US military operation that pays Iraqi newspapers to run   
   stories written by "information operations" troops about how wonderfully   
   things are going in the war should not come as a shock.   
      
   Even before the Iraq invasion, the Pentagon planned to create its own   
   in-house propaganda and disinformation operation, to be called the Office of   
   Strategic Influence. The program was supposedly killed after critics pointed   
   out how easily the phony news it created could drift back into the domestic   
   media.   
      
   Nevertheless, the occupation of Iraq has put the Pentagon in the  "strategic   
   influence" business in a big way, with its own TV news operation (the   
   Pentagon Channel), a then-coalition-controlled Iraqi TV and radio network   
   (now nominally in the hands of the Iraqi government, but still powered by   
   Pentagon dollars and run by a US vendor) and millions of dollars to hire   
   public relations firms and consultants to spin the coalition's propaganda to   
   the Iraqi people.   
      
   In fact, paying off the Iraqi media to run good news mirrors what the Bush   
   administration has been doing at home.   
      
   For example, in the past year it was revealed that the Bush administration   
   paid nearly a quarter of a million dollars to a prominent conservative   
   commentator, Armstrong Williams, to promote a new education law that had   
   been strongly supported by President George W Bush. The Education Department   
   paid a public relations firm for a video that promoted the law and appeared   
   as a news story, without making clear the reporter was hired as part of the   
   deal.   
      
   Similarly, some-time reporter and $200-an-hour gay escort, James Guckert,   
   aka Jeff Gannon, violated a ban on "fake" news stories by reprinting White   
   House news releases verbatim.   
      
   The gist of the latest story is that beginning this year as part of an   
   information offensive in Iraq, the US military began secretly paying Iraqi   
   newspapers to publish stories written by American troops in an effort to   
   burnish the image of the US mission in Iraq.   
      
   Responding to the growing furor over the disclosure, the Senate Armed   
   Services Committee has summoned Defense Department officials for a briefing   
   on the issue. "I am concerned about any actions that may undermine the   
   credibility of the United States as we help the Iraqi people stand up a   
   democracy," said the committee's chairman, John Warner.   
      
   The White House, too, says it is very concerned and is seeking more   
   information.   
      
   The articles, written by the US military troops, are translated into Arabic   
   and placed in Baghdad newspapers as unbiased news accounts with the help of   
   the Lincoln Group, a Washington-based public relations firm located on   
   legendary consultant central, K St, paid by the Pentagon. Lincoln's contract   
   is with the Pentagon's special ops propaganda machine - JPOSE (Joint   
   Psychological Operations Support Element).   
      
   In addition to paying newspapers to print government propaganda, Lincoln has   
   paid about a dozen Iraqi journalists each several hundred dollars a month.   
   Those journalists were chosen because their past coverage had not been   
   antagonistic to the United States,   
      
   US officials in Washington said the payments were made through the Baghdad   
   Press Club; an organization they said was created more than a year ago by US   
   Army officers. Members of the Press Club are paid as much as $200 a month,   
   depending on how many positive pieces they produce.   
      
   A spokesman for the US military in Baghdad, Major General Rick Lynch,   
   responded that "a propaganda war is under way in Iraq" as militants were   
   also using the media. "Conducting these kidnappings, these beheadings, these   
   explosions so that he gets international coverage to look like he has more   
   capability than he truly has," Lynch said.   
      
   "He is lying to the Iraqi people. We don't lie. We don't need to lie," Lynch   
   added.   
      
   Ironically, according to the reports, the Lincoln Group has also been paying   
   Ahmad Chalabi's newspaper, al-Mutamar, to reprint pro-American propaganda.   
   Hundreds of millions of dollars in subsidies were lavished on Iraqi exile   
   Chalabi and his surrogates in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq. Chalabi is   
   now a deputy prime minister. Chalabi was influential in helping boost the   
   Bush administration's "case" that Saddam Hussein had a weapons of mass   
   destruction program.   
      
   What is worth noting is the lack of substance in the stories. One of them   
   was titled "Iraqis Insist on Living Despite Terrorism". That ranks up there   
   with the sun sets in the West and the tide rolls in and out. It also   
   explains why the paper was only paid $50 for it.   
      
   Also, in some cases the military articles placed in the Iraqi press had   
   copied verbatim text from copyrighted publications and passed it on to be   
   printed without attribution.   
      
   These stories, however, are part of a continuing and longstanding effort to   
   shape public opinion; more accurately described as psychological operations   
   (psyops) in Iraq.   
      
   An article in the American Prospect blog notes that in February a couple of   
   local staffers of President George W Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney   
   headed to Iraq to work with Iraqex, the company that in March rebranded   
   itself as The Lincoln Group to match that of its corporate parent, the   
   Lincoln Alliance Corporation, a DC-based "business intelligence" firm.   
      
   Also, famed New York ad man, Jerry Della Femina, is on The Lincoln Group's   
   advisory board.   
      
   But in late 2003 or early 2004 the Lincoln Alliance Corp became Iraqex. In   
   October 2004, it won a $6 million contract from the Multi-National   
   Corps-Iraq (formerly known as Combined Joint Task Force-7, which had   
   operational control of all troops in Iraq) to design and execute an   
   "aggressive advertising and public relations campaign that will accurately   
   inform the Iraqi people of the coalition's goals and gain their support",   
   according to the contract's August 2004 request for proposal.   
      
   Lincoln Group executive vice president Christian Bailey, a British venture   
   capitalist, was involved with Lead21, a Republican business organization   
   registered with the Internal Revenue Service as a 527 committee, which is a   
   tax-exempt organization that engages in political activities   
      
   After graduating from Oxford University in England in the 1990s, Bailey   
   moved to the San Francisco area about 1998, and in 1999, founded Express   
   Action, an e-commerce company he apparently later sold. In 2002, Bailey was   
   identified as the founder and chairman of a New York-based hedge fund called   
   Lincoln Asset Management. On March 1, 2003, it was reported that Lincoln   
   Asset Management had an initial $100 million in commitments to underwrite a   
   leveraged buyout fund to acquire defense and intelligence companies.   
      
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)