the pentagon rethinks its mission: thanks to the new york times

Pentagon stops planting ‘analysts’ to provide talking points 

The Pentagon has stopped feeding its talking points directly to retired generals and officers who then recited the military’s arguments to major television networks as their own ostensibly “independent” analysis.

In a blockbuster expose this month, the New York Times revealed the Pentagon’s “hidden hand” behind the military talking heads who helped it sell the Iraq war to the American people. Since the story appeared eight days ago it has been all-but-ignored by the major television networks who served as conduits for the Pentagon’s message men.

Now the program has been “temporarily suspended” a Pentagon spokesman says, so the Department of Defense “can take a look at some of the concerns.”

Chief among those concerns is that the military analysts participated in what amounted to a propaganda campaign aimed at the American people because of their own financial interests.

Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) has asked the Government Accountability Office to investigate the legality of the program, which one former analyst told the Times was like “psyops on steroirds.”

Kerry wrote a letter to Comptroller General Gene Dodaro (reprinted below) in which he asked the GAO to determine who at the Pentagon was involved, how often the contacted the military analysts and what financial ties those analysts had to securing defense contracts.

“Americans need to be able to trust that defense contractors secure government contracts based on how well they protect our soldiers, not how closely they follow Pentagon talking points,” Kerry said in a news release. “I look forward to hearing from the GAO about the legality of this alleged covert practice, who was involved, how it operated, and its impact on media coverage.”

Both Democratic presidential candidates, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, also have weighed in on the program, in statements to The Nation. (Republican nominee John McCain has said nothing about the program.)

The Clinton Campaign said that given the Bush administration’s record on intelligence and misinformation, an investigation is critical to determine how the Pentagon shaped the “commentary of putatively independent television military analysts” for “‘selling’ the Iraq war and our country’s defense policy now.” The campaign statement also flagged “serious questions about the potential linkage of government contracts to favorable public commentary by military analysts.”

The Obama Campaign called for “greater transparency to ensure that those who lobby the Pentagon are not rewarded for favorable commentary about the Administration’s policies.” Obama spokesperson Jen Psaki also broadened the argument to indict the ongoing debate over war policy, saying “it’s past time that we conducted an honest dialogue about the situation in Iraq.” …

McCain’s refusal to comment on the program is unsurprising, given his staunch support for every major aspect of the President’s Iraq policy. However, the Democratic candidates’ delay in responding is more complicated. There has been a virtual blackout of the topic on television news, so the candidates have not been pressed in recent interviews, such as Obama’s Fox appearance on Sunday. And the issue is politically delicate because it implicates the conduct of retired generals. The campaigns were careful to criticize the administration, not the generals, who hold a hallowed position in foreign policy discourse. The Clinton Campaign even stressed that its criticism did not impugn “the honor and patriotism of our dedicated career military officers,” and neither candidate advocated a congressional or independent inquiry.

Teleconferences and briefings for the military analysts have been halted pending the review, which is being conducted by the Pentagon’s public affairs office, Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said.

US Defense Secretary Robert Gates has not directly addressed the issue since the lengthy report on the program appeared in the Times April 20, except to say that the analysts should make clear they were speaking only for themselves.

The Times found that the Pentagon laid on special briefings and conference calls for the retired officers, many of whom then repeated the talking points as military experts on television news shows.

The paper also found that many of the media analysts also worked as consultants or served on the boards of defense contracting companies, but that those ties often went undisclosed to the public.

Gates last met with the military media analysts in September, Whitman said.

With wire reports

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Sen. John Kerry sent the following letter to the GAO Monday:

The Honorable Gene Dodaro

Acting Comptroller General,

United States Government Accountability Office
441 G St., NW
Washington, DC 20548

Dear Mr. Dodaro:

Recently, the New York Times reported that the Department of Defense (DoD) led a covert effort to cultivate military analysts with distinguished service records to produce favorable press coverage of the Administration’s wartime policies.

There is great public concern that DoD would systematically enlist military analysts, many of whom had business interests tied to the Administration’s war effort, to spread its message over the airwaves. At a time when confidence in Washington is at an all-time low, there is a very real worry among Americans that when they turn on the television to hear objective analysis from a military commentator they might instead be hearing what they would deem to be “propaganda.”

Collectively, this cadre of analysts may represent over 150 military contractors as lobbyists, senior officials, and board members. The analysts’ business relationships raise legitimate concerns as to whether some of them were encouraged to tailor their commentary in order to maintain their companies’ good standing with DoD. In fact, some analysts reportedly echoed message points they sometimes suspected to be inaccurate or false for this reason.

So that Congress may understand the full reach of this alleged operation, as well as what steps may be necessary to prevent a similar effort in the future, I ask that your office pursue a full investigation into this matter. I ask that this investigation consider the following:

•The names of all senior Pentagon officials involved in this effort, and the extent of that involvement;
•The extent of the contact between Pentagon officials and the military analysts in question regarding what was said by the analysts over the public airwaves;
•The extent to which the military analysts involved had personal financial interests that were in some way linked to their analysis, including a list of federal contracts that are in any way linked to the companies that employ any of the analysts in question;
•The extent to which the personal financial interests of the analysts were known, and potentially used, by the Pentagon to promote misleading, inaccurate or false information through the media;
•The extent to which the personal financial interests of the analysts were disclosed to the public and to the media outlets that employed their service;
•Whether the actions taken by Pentagon officials to recruit and employ the military analysts were in fact illegal, and if so, whether those involved were made aware at the time that they were breaking the law;
•What procedures are in place to ensure that military analysts with close ties to government officials or information are not using preferential access to senior officials to further business opportunities; and
•What steps need to be taken by Congress and by the Pentagon to ensure that this type of effort is not repeated.

As the answers to these questions will do much to address the level of doubt and cynicism created by these actions, I ask that you pursue this request with a sense of urgency and report your findings to Congress as expeditiously as possible.

Thank you for your consideration of this request.

Sincerely,

John Kerry

view from the top

baghdad embassy suites

America’s epic embassy in Iraq

pentagon talking puppets: drinking from the public trough

Message Machine

Behind Analysts, the Pentagon’s Hidden Hand

A PENTAGON CAMPAIGN Retired officers have been used to shape terrorism coverage from inside the TV and radio networks.

….retired military analysts represent more than 150 military contractors either as lobbyists, senior executives, board members or consultants. The companies include defense heavyweights, but also scores of smaller companies, all part of a vast assemblage of contractors scrambling for hundreds of billions in military business generated by the administration’s war on terror….

they….have echoed administration talking points, sometimes even when they suspected the information was false or inflated. Some analysts acknowledge they suppressed doubts because they feared jeopardizing their access.

A few expressed regret for participating in what they regarded as an effort to dupe the American public with propaganda dressed as independent military analysis.

“It was them saying, ‘We need to stick our hands up your back and move your mouth for you,’ ” Robert S. Bevelacqua, a retired Green Beret and former Fox News analyst, said.

Kenneth Allard, a former NBC military analyst who has taught information warfare at the National Defense University, said the campaign amounted to a sophisticated information operation. “This was a coherent, active policy,” he said.

As conditions in Iraq deteriorated, Mr. Allard recalled, he saw a yawning gap between what analysts were told in private briefings and what subsequent inquiries and books later revealed.

“Night and day,” Mr. Allard said, “I felt we’d been hosed.”

Over time, the Pentagon recruited more than 75 retired officers, although some participated only briefly or sporadically. The largest contingent was affiliated with Fox News, followed by NBC and CNN, the other networks with 24-hour cable outlets. But analysts from CBS and ABC were included, too. Some recruits, though not on any network payroll, were influential in other ways — either because they were sought out by radio hosts, or because they often published op-ed articles or were quoted in magazines, Web sites and newspapers. At least nine of them have written op-ed articles for The Times.

The group was heavily represented by men involved in the business of helping companies win military contracts. Several held senior positions with contractors that gave them direct responsibility for winning new Pentagon business. James Marks, a retired Army general and analyst for CNN from 2004 to 2007, pursued military and intelligence contracts as a senior executive with McNeil Technologies. Still others held board positions with military firms that gave them responsibility for government business. General McInerney, the Fox analyst, for example, sits on the boards of several military contractors, including Nortel Government Solutions, a supplier of communication networks.

….Mostly the analysts attended briefings. These sessions, records show, spooled out an alternative narrative, depicting an Iraq bursting with political and economic energy, its security forces blossoming. On the crucial question of troop levels, the briefings echoed the White House line: No reinforcements were needed. The “growing and sophisticated threat” described by Mr. Bremer (to the President in his official capacity) was instead depicted as degraded, isolated and on the run.

“We’re winning,” a briefing document proclaimed.

….The pace of briefings accelerated. More trips were organized. Eventually the effort involved officials from Washington to Baghdad to Kabul to Guantánamo and back to Tampa, Fla., the headquarters of United States Central Command.

….Many analysts were being paid by the “hit,” the number of times they appeared on TV. The more an analyst could boast of fresh inside information from high-level Pentagon “sources,” the more hits he could expect. The more hits, the greater his potential influence in the military marketplace, where several analysts prominently advertised their network roles.

But many analysts also said the networks asked few questions about their outside business interests, the nature of their work or the potential for that work to create conflicts of interest. “None of that ever happened,” said Mr. Allard, an NBC analyst until 2006.

“The worst conflict of interest was no interest.”

Mr. Allard and other analysts said their network handlers also raised no objections when the Defense Department began paying their commercial airfare for Pentagon-sponsored trips to Iraq — a clear ethical violation for most news organizations.

CBS News declined to comment on what it knew about its military analysts’ business affiliations or what steps it took to guard against potential conflicts.

NBC News also declined to discuss its procedures for hiring and monitoring military analysts. The network issued a short statement: “We have clear policies in place to assure that the people who appear on our air have been appropriately vetted and that nothing in their profile would lead to even a perception of a conflict of interest.”

Jeffrey W. Schneider, a spokesman for ABC, said that while the network’s military consultants were not held to the same ethical rules as its full-time journalists, they were expected to keep the network informed about any outside business entanglements. “We make it clear to them we expect them to keep us closely apprised,” he said.

CNN, for example, said it was unaware for nearly three years that one of its main military analysts, General Marks, was deeply involved in the business of seeking government contracts, including contracts related to Iraq.

General Marks was hired by CNN in 2004, about the time he took a management position at McNeil Technologies, where his job was to pursue military and intelligence contracts. As required, General Marks disclosed that he received income from McNeil Technologies. But the disclosure form did not require him to describe what his job entailed, and CNN acknowledges it failed to do additional vetting.

“We did not ask Mr. Marks the follow-up questions we should have,” CNN said in a written statement.

In an interview, General Marks said it was no secret at CNN that his job at McNeil Technologies was about winning contracts. “I mean, that’s what McNeil does,” he said.

CNN, however, said it did not know the nature of McNeil’s military business or what General Marks did for the company. If he was bidding on Pentagon contracts, CNN said, that should have disqualified him from being a military analyst for the network. But in the summer and fall of 2006, even as he was regularly asked to comment on conditions in Iraq, General Marks was working intensively on bidding for a $4.6 billion contract to provide thousands of translators to United States forces in Iraq. In fact, General Marks was made president of the McNeil spin-off that won the huge contract in December 2006.

General Marks said his work on the contract did not affect his commentary on CNN. “I’ve got zero challenge separating myself from a business interest,” he said.

But CNN said it had no idea about his role in the contract until July 2007, when it reviewed his most recent disclosure form, submitted months earlier, and finally made inquiries about his new job.

“We saw the extent of his dealings and determined at that time we should end our relationship with him,” CNN said.

 

obama zeroes in on economy and war in iraq

In Erie visit, Obama zeroes in on economy and war in Iraq

Democratic hopeful attacks Bush failures

By Robert J. McCarthy - News Political Reporter

Associated Press

ERIE, Pa. — If Sen. Barack Obama is to outsmart the pollsters and upset Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton in Tuesday’s Democratic presidential primary election in Pennsylvania, the populist message he preached here Friday must register — and then some.

Obama whipped up a crowd of several thousand students and supporters at Behrend College at Penn State-Erie with constant references to what he called President Bush’s economic failures and presumptive Republican nominee Sen. John McCain’s “more of the same approach.”

He continually zeroed in on economic issues as well as the war in Iraq to draw a sharp contrast with McCain, telling students and residents of this industrial city that those favored by Republican economic policies are thriving while ordinary families are working harder for less.

“When the CEO makes more in a day than the ordinary worker gets in a year, and when the CEO gets great tax breaks and the ordinary worker gets nothing, and when the company goes belly up and the CEO gets a golden parachute and the worker loses his pension,” he said, “then something is wrong.”

….Though he and Clinton have jabbed at each other throughout the last week, he saved most of his ammunition for McCain on Friday as he tried to identify with an area that continues to lose its industrial base.

“Here’s what’s happened since George Bush took office; here’s what John McCain calls ‘great progress,’ ” Obama said. “We went through the first period of sustained economic growth since World War II that saw incomes drop. Eleven million more Americans don’t have health care. Two million more Americans are out of work. Millions of families are facing foreclosure. The poverty rate has gone up. You’re working harder for less, and you’re paying more for tuition, more for groceries, more at the pump. That’s what John McCain calls great progress.”

Obama, who was introduced by Pennsylvania Sen. Robert Casey, repeated some of his standard views in a “town hall meeting” in which he randomly picked six people to ask questions. He reiterated he wanted to abandon the politics that “tears each other down.”

He also explicitly dwelled on his proposals for health care (lower premiums for those who have it, subsidies for those who don’t), tax breaks for “ordinary people who make $75,000 per year,” ending trade agreements that give advantages to countries like China, and new jobs based on clean energy programs.

And when one man on disability asked what he would do for people like him, Obama did not hesitate.

“My first question is always going to be: ‘What can you do for yourself?’ ” he said.

The senator received some of his loudest applause for his statements on ending the war in Iraq.

Audience member Jerry Gorniak, 74, a retired general contractor from Erie, said he was old enough to remember the excitement generated by John F. Kennedy, and believes Obama has exceeded even that.

College students that Obama has rallied to his cause throughout his campaign were on hand Friday. Rae Anne Scully, a freshman international business major from Conneautville, Pa., called him “an inspiration for our generation.”

blood and death in baquba

More than 50 people have been killed by blasts in three cities in Iraq. The deadliest explosion went off at around noon in Baquba, where these bodies were laid out at a morgue.

paradigm shift or proving ground?

Fight For Sadr City a Proving Ground for Iraqi Military

Joao Silva for The New York Times

An Iraqi soldier, left, with an American soldier in Sadr City. More Photos »

Published: April 11, 2008, by Michael R. Gordon

BAGHDAD — The Iraqi soldiers pushed their way up a main thoroughfare in Sadr City over the past week, but the militias that still prowl the Shiite enclave were sniping at them from the alleyways.

So a platoon of American troops drove up a bomb-cratered road in their Stryker vehicles on Thursday to give the Iraqis some pointers on how to hold the line.

After the ramps of the Strykers were lowered, Second Lt. Adam Bowen sought out his Iraqi counterpart at the battered storefront in the Thawra district that served as an Iraqi strongpoint.

“Are you going to stay?” the Iraqi lieutenant asked hopefully.

Lieutenant Bowen told them his platoon was not. Surveying the terrain, he recommended that the Iraqi soldiers set up a firing position overlooking a sniper-infested alley. After an hour, the Americans headed back to the abandoned house that served as the company command post, and the gunfire in the streets picked up again.

The struggle for control of Sadr City is more than a test of wills with renegade Shiite militias. It has also become a testing ground for the Iraqi military, which has been thrust into the lead.

Iraqi soldiers, suffering from a shortage of experienced noncommissioned officers, have often been firing wildly, expending vast quantities of ammunition to try to silence militias that are equipped with AK-47’s, mortars and rockets. But pulling back from their positions earlier, they now appear to be holding their ground — albeit with considerable American support.

Iraqi politics has played a role in shaping the military strategy. Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki has decreed that American ground forces should not push into the heart of Sadr City, according to a senior American officer. American commanders also want to limit the United States’ profile in an area that has long been a bastion of support for Moktada al-Sadr, the anti-American cleric.

But American commanders also see this as an opportunity to shift more responsibility to the Iraqi troops — in this case Iraq’s 11th Army Division, one of the newest divisions in the Iraqi military.

Whether they like it or not, Iraqi troops are hundreds of yards ahead of the farthest American position and in the thick of the fight.

“The I.A. needs to start doing it on their own,” Lieutenant Bowen, the 23-year-old commander of Third Platoon, Bravo Company, told a reporter who accompanied him on the mission, referring to the Iraqi Army.

The Iraqi troops, of course, still benefit mightily from American military support. On Thursday morning, Apache helicopters fired Hellfire missiles at teams of militia fighters that were preparing to fire mortars.

Heavily armored American “route clearance” vehicles, their searchlights blazing in the night, swept the roads for hidden bombs. An American reconnaissance drone buzzed overhead and an armed Predator drone blasted a small group of militia men a few days ago.

In an urban battlefield in which there are often no clear lines and militias still roam the narrow side streets, American soldiers are very much at risk and in the fray.

On Wednesday at dusk, Lt. Marc Dudek, the leader of Second Platoon, which was defending the forward line of the American forces here, led his soldiers into the street after a rocket-propelled grenade flew past the abandoned house where his troops had pitched camp.

As the soldiers returned to their house after a fruitless search, the civilians ominously vanished from a side street. The platoon took fire from a nearby building moments later and responded with an ear-shattering barrage. That quieted the militias for a while. By nightfall, the shooting started again.

The Thursday mission by Lieutenant Bowen was to check on the Iraqi forces who were defending an intersection 300 yards north of Lieutenant Dudek’s position. Both platoons are part of the First Battalion, Fourteenth Infantry Regiment, and were based near Taji before they were rushed to Baghdad to help with the Sadr City operation.

The soldiers were told that they might be needed in Sadr City for a few days. Instead, they have been here for almost two weeks and are now preparing to stay longer. The Americans’ working relationship with the Iraqis is professional but not always clear.

“There is no good liaison right now between the I.A. and the coalition forces,” Lieutenant Bowen said. “It makes things kind of confusing to come up here not knowing exactly what you are getting yourself into tactical-wise. So you come up, figure out what the tactical situation is and try to push through from there.”

As the Iraqi and American officers huddled, the Iraqi lieutenant said some of his soldiers had been receiving threatening calls on their cellphones from members of the Madhi Army warning them to leave. The Iraqi lieutenant could not say how the Mahdi Army obtained their phone numbers, but some Iraqi soldiers who participated in the Basra fighting deserted after their families were threatened.

As the discussions continued, one stocky Iraqi soldier stepped forward and announced that he was not afraid of the fighters from Jaysh al-Madhi —or JAM as it is called by American military — regardless of the threats.

 “In case I see a bad guy I will not arrest him,” the Iraqi soldier said through an American military interpreter. “I will kill him immediately to get revenge for my guys who were lost.”

“That is absolutely understandable,” Lieutenant Bowen responded. “If they have a weapon and if you ID them as a JAM member, eliminate the threat.”

The militias have their own unique way of signaling the presence of the foes. The Americans say the militias have been using trained pigeons to signal the presence of American and Iraqi troops. The Iraqis wanted to know if they could fire on the pigeon keepers as American troops have done during the bitter fighting here.

As long as the Iraqis determined that the flocks of birds were not a coincidence, the Americans advised, the pigeon keepers were fair game.

As if on cue, a group of birds was observed hovering over a rooftop across the street. But the American and Iraqi soldiers had a more immediate concern: stopping the sniper fire down a nearby ally.

Lieutenant Bowen pointed to the charred ruins of a building across the street and explained that it had burned to the ground when one of his Stryker vehicles hit a roadside bomb, wounding some of its crew.

“Before the I.A. came up here this entire area was ridiculously dangerous,” he said. But alleys remain a problem.

“Typically, they have not cleared it because they don’t have enough troops,” Lieutenant Bowen said. “They don’t feel secure as they move down these alleyways. I think a lot of that is because they might be new. I think a lot of it is them being green. That is what we are trying to overcome by bringing an American presence up here, giving them suggestions, giving them a helpful shove.”

As the Americans and Iraqis pondered how to silence the sniper, the Iraqi lieutenant explained that their enemy appeared to be firing from a small hole in a wall at the end of the alley, which informants had said was rigged with bombs.

The American troops set up a position to observe the alley soon after they arrived. They told the Iraqis they should take it over before the platoon pulled back. The Iraqis were anxious about doing so. An earlier observation point had been pummeled with rocket-propelled grenades.

The lesson, the Americans said, was to be less obvious about the vigilance, not to abandon it altogether. Sgt. George Lewis, the platoon sergeant, said he would personally lead the Iraqis to the American position.

After some gentle persuasion, the Iraqis agreed to go along, but not until they wolfed down a quick lunch of bread and rice.

Sergeant Lewis said the performance of the Iraqi troops had improved noticeably during the Sadr City fight, but added that they also had a long way to go.

“They have their experienced guys,” he said. “But there are more new guys than experienced guys. The experienced guys are the ones in the higher ranks, the officers and senior enlisted guys. Down at the lower levels, like squad leader, platoon leader or team leader, there are not very many experienced guys to lead them in the right direction. That is where the problem lies right there.”

war crimes unveiled?

Top Bush aides approved interrogation tactics: report

RAW STORY Published: Wednesday April 9, 2008

WASHINGTON – President George W. Bush’s most senior advisers approved “enhanced interrogation techniques” of top al-Qaeda suspects by the Central Intelligence Agency, ABC News reported on Wednesday (see video below), citing sources it did not name.

ABC reported that the so-called “principals” discussed interrogation details in dozens of top-secret talks and meetings in the White House.

Then-national security adviser Condoleezza Rice chaired the meetings, which took place in the White House Situation Room and were typically attended by a select group of senior officials or their deputies, ABC said.

“Highly placed sources said a handful of top advisers signed off on how the CIA would interrogate top al Qaeda suspects — whether they would be slapped, pushed, deprived of sleep or subjected to simulated drowning, called waterboarding,” ABC reported.

In addition to Rice, the principals at the time included Vice President Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Colin Powell, CIA Director George Tenet and Attorney General John Ashcroft, the report said.

There was no immediate comment from the White House on the ABC report.

Waterboarding has been condemned by many members of Congress, human rights groups and other countries as a form of illegal torture. Bush and administration officials have said repeatedly that the United States does not use or condone torture.

ABC News said spokesmen for Tenet, Rumsfeld and Powell declined to comment about the interrogation program or their private discussions in the principals meetings.

The White House also declined comment on behalf of Rice and Cheney and Ashcroft could not be reached for comment on Wednesday, ABC said.

Citing sources, ABC said Ashcroft agreed with the policy decision to allow aggressive interrogation tactics and advised that they were legal but was troubled by the discussions.

Ashcroft argued that senior White House advisers should not be involved in the grim details of interrogations, sources were cited as saying.

ABC cited a top official as saying that Ashcroft asked aloud after one meeting: “Why are we talking about this in the White House? History will not judge this kindly.”