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Arash

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Dec 4, 2005, 4:03:45 AM12/4/05

Associated Press (AP)
December 2, 2005

Department of Defense (DoD) grapples with report of spinning news stories

By Lolita C. Baldor

The Pentagon is struggling to answer questions, including those from Congress, about
a military program that planted favorable stories in Iraqi media.

Defense Department officials, summoned to a briefing Friday before the Senate Armed
Services Committee, have remained silent about the program. Multimillion-dollar
contracts cover paying Iraqi newspapers and journalists to get into print such
stories about the war and the rebuilding effort.

“A free and independent press is critical to the functioning of a democracy, and I am
concerned about any actions which may erode the independence of the Iraqi media”,
said the committee chairman, Senator John Warner, R-Va.

Military officials in Iraq say the program is necessary.

“The purpose of this program is to ensure factual information is provided to the
Iraqi public”, Lieutenant Colonel Barry Johnson, a U.S. military spokesman, said in
Iraq.

One of the companies involved — the Washington-based Lincoln Group
(http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Lincoln_Group) — has at least two
contracts with the military to provide media and public relations services. One
contract, for $6 million, was for public relations and advertising work in Iraq and
involved planting favorable stories in the Iraqi media, Defense Department records
show.

The other Lincoln Group contract, which is with the Special Operations Command
(http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=U.S._Special_Operations_Command), is
worth up to $100 million over five years for media operations with video, print and
Web-based products (http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=12840).

That contract is not related to the dispute over propaganda and was not for services
in Iraq, according to command spokesman Ken McGraw.

The Lincoln Group (http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=12840) shares that Special
Operations contract with SYColeman
(http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=SYColeman), a division of L-3
Communications, and Science Applications International Corp.
(http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?list=type&type=17), a San Diego-based defense
contractor.

The program came to light just as President Bush released his strategy for victory in
Iraq. It includes the need to support a “free, independent and responsible Iraqi
media”.

“We’re very concerned”, said White House spokesman Scott McClellan. “We are seeking
more information from the Pentagon”.

Senator Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., characterized the program as a scheme that
“speaks volumes about the president’s credibility gap. If Americans were truly
welcomed in Iraq as liberators, we wouldn’t have to doctor the news for the Iraqi
people”.

Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said late Thursday he was still trying to gather
information from U.S. military officials in Baghdad.

A military spokesman in the Iraqi capital was asked if the program undercuts the
credibility of the military or the news media. Major General Rick Lynch quoted a
senior al-CIA-duh (al-Qaida) leader, Ayman al-Zawahri, as saying that “half the
battle is the battlefield of the media”.

General Lynch said the terrorists lie to the Iraqi people, but the American military
does not.

“Everything we do is based on fact not based on fiction”, General Lynch said.
http://www.armytimes.com/story.php?f=1-292925-1389273.php