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    US Propaganda Aimed at Foreigners Reaches Public: Pentagon Document
    Agence France-Presse

    Friday 27 January 2006

    The Pentagon acknowledged in a newly declassified document released Jan. 26 that the US public is increasingly exposed to propaganda disseminated overseas in psychological operations.

    But the document suggests that the Pentagon believes that US law that prohibits exposing the US public to propaganda does not apply to the unintended blowback from such operations.

    "The increasing ability of people in most parts of the globe to access international information sources makes targeting particular audiences more difficult," said the document.

    "Today the distinction between foreign and domestic audiences become more a question of USG (US government) intent rather than information dissemination practices," it said.

    Called the "Information Operations Roadmap," the document was approved by US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld in October 2003.

    It was made public by the National Security Archives, a private non-profit research group which obtained it through a Freedom of Information Act request.

    The document said that psychological operations, or "psyops," are restricted by Pentagon policy and executive order from targeting US audiences, US military personnel and news agencies and outlets.

    "However, information intended for foreign audiences, including public diplomacy and PSYOP, increasingly is consumed by our domestic audience and vice-versa."

    In a press release, the National Security Archives said the document "calls for 'boundaries' between information operations abroad and the news media at home, but provides for no such limits and claims that as long as the American public is not 'targeted,' any leakage of PSYOP to the American public does not matter."

    Pentagon spokesman Lawrence DiRita vehemently denied that the Pentagon was unconcerned about possible blowback.

    "I reject the premise of this release which is, 'Hey if it bleeds back we're okay with it.' We're not okay with it," he said.

    DiRita said that, with the exception of "battlefield deception," psychological operations used to influence foreign public were based on factual, accurate information.

    He said that the Pentagon has sought to erect "firewalls" between psychological operations that aim to "influence" foreign publics and public affairs, which "inform" the press and the US public.

    But he acknowledged that the distinctions between the two have become blurred.

    "It's an important distinction to understand, but increasingly in the world we're in it's a distinction that deserves scrutiny," he said.

    Disclosures last month that US military psychological operations units were secretly planting paid-for stories with the Iraqi press through a contractor brought some of those issues to the surface.

    General George Casey, the US commander in Iraq, is reviewing the results of an investigation into the case, but officials have said that the disclosures have so far prompted no changes.

 

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    Planted Articles May Be Violation
    By Mark Mazzetti
    The Los Angeles Times

    Friday 27 January 2006

A 2003 Pentagon directive appears to bar a military program that pays Iraqi media to print favorable stories.

    Washington - A secret US military program that pays Iraqi newspapers to publish articles favorable to the American mission appears to violate a 2003 Pentagon directive, according to a newly declassified document released Thursday.

    The information campaign run by US troops in Baghdad and a Washington-based private contractor is the subject of a high-level military investigation. Last month, the top US general in Iraq said a preliminary investigation into the program had found it did not violate US law or Pentagon regulations.

    "We concluded that we were operating within our authorities and the appropriate legal procedures. And so we have not suspended any of the processes up to now," Army Gen. George W. Casey told reporters then.

    A secret directive on the Pentagon's information operations policy released Thursday, however, appears to prohibit US troops from conducting psychological operations, or psy-ops, targeting the media.

    "Psy-op is restricted by both DoD [Department of Defense] policy and executive order from targeting American audiences, our military personnel and news agencies or outlets," says the directive, dated Oct. 30, 2003, and signed by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld.

    The document, titled "Information Operations Roadmap," was released by the National Security Archive, a research institution based at George Washington University that obtained it under the Freedom of Information Act.

    A Pentagon spokesman did not return calls seeking comment.

    But one senior Pentagon official said that based on the wording in the directive, the operation seemed to violate Pentagon policy.

    "It's clearly a violation based on the language used in the Rumsfeld document," said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk publicly on the issue.

    Since early last year, the military's Information Operations Task Force in Baghdad has used private contractor Lincoln Group to plant stories in Iraqi media about US and Iraqi military and rebuilding efforts.

    It also has placed reports indicating that anti-insurgent sentiment is rising among Iraqi citizens.

    American troops write articles, called storyboards, which are then delivered to the Iraqi staff of Lincoln Group. The staffers then translate the storyboards into Arabic and pay newspaper editors in Baghdad to run the articles.

    A military investigation of the operation led by Navy Rear Adm. Scott Van Buskirk should be completed soon, Pentagon officials say.

    US law forbids the Pentagon from conducting propaganda efforts that target US audiences. Yet many in the military say that the globalization of media, driven by the Internet and the 24-hour news cycle, makes it likely that information campaigns targeting foreign audiences find their way into US media coverage.

    That much is acknowledged in the 78-page document released Thursday, which says that "information for foreign audiences, including public diplomacy and psy-op, increasingly is consumed by our domestic audience."

    The directive recommends that boundaries be established to ensure that US military information operations don't target US audiences directly. It does not say what the boundaries should be.

    The document was written to set out policy guidelines and establish the Pentagon's reasoning for elevating information operations to a "core" mission for the US military, Pentagon officials say.

    "Information, always important in warfare, is now critical to military success and will only become more so in the foreseeable future," the document says.