ZGram - 12/13/2004 - "Galloway: Truth be told, lies are part of
Pentagon strategy"
zgrams at zgrams.zundelsite.org
zgrams at zgrams.zundelsite.org
Thu Dec 16 08:08:00 EST 2004
Zgram - Where Truth is Destiny: Now more than ever!
December 13, 2004
Good Morning from the Zundelsite:
"The first casualty when war comes is truth." So said Sen. Hiram
Johnson, a California Republican, in the year 1917:
[START]
Truth be told, lies are part of Pentagon strategy
By JOSEPH L. GALLOWAY
Knight Ridder Newspapers
There is a struggle inside the Pentagon over where to draw the line
in conducting so-called information operations or propaganda in the
wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and who will be involved. On one side
are the information warfare activists, led by Defense Secretary
Donald H. Rumsfeld and Assistant Secretary Douglas Feith. On the
other are those who believe that telling lies to the media is wrong
and military public affairs officers should never be involved in that.
The wrangling has been going on since soon after the 9/11 attacks in
2001 when a Pentagon war planner, speaking anonymously, told a
Washington Post reporter, "This is the most information-intensive war
you can imagine. We're going to lie about things."
Not long afterward the Pentagon opened its controversial Office of
Strategic Influence amid reports that its mission included planting
false news stories in the international media. A public outcry led to
the hasty shuttering of that office, but Rumsfeld served notice that
while the office may have been closed, its mission would be continued
by other entities.
The defense secretary told reporters on Nov. 18, 2002: "Fine, you
want to savage this thing, fine. I'll give you the corpse. There's
the name. You can have the name, but I'm going to keep doing every
single thing that needs to be done, and I have."
This week the Los Angeles Times reported that CNN had been targeted
in an information war operation three weeks before the start of the
attack against Fallujah. On Oct. 14 Marine 1st Lt. Lyle Gilbert, a
public affairs spokesman, went on camera to declare that "troops
crossed the line of departure" - that the Fallujah operation was
under way.
It was not. The U.S. commanders obviously hoped that the false news
broadcast by CNN would trigger certain moves by the insurgents and
foreign terrorists holding the Sunni city - moves that then could be
analyzed to gain information on how they would defend Fallujah.
Marine sources in Iraq flatly deny that Lt. Gilbert's statement to
CNN was a deception operation or part of a larger psy-war operation.
They say the distinction between public affairs and information
operations is very clear and jealously guarded by the public affairs
community.
Also this week the Washington Post brought new attention on the
friendly-fire killing of Army Ranger Pat Tillman, a former NFL
football star who gave up the spotlight to become a soldier. For days
after the death of Tillman, military commanders and spokesmen both in
Afghanistan and at Fort Bragg left out any mention of his having been
killed by American bullets as they spun the story of a hero killed in
battle.
That incident brought to mind the false stories about the rescue and
heroism of Pvt. Jessica Lynch foisted on reporters during the opening
days of the attack into Iraq. The official picture painted initially
was of a young woman who fought to the last bullet before being
wounded and captured. The truth was that Pvt. Lynch was injured when
the vehicle in which she was riding crashed and she was knocked
unconscious. She never fired a shot.
An investigation of the Tillman death and the information given to
the media is presently under way, according to an Army spokesman.
Defense Department spokesman Larry DiRita says he has asked his staff
for "more information" on how the Oct. 14 Marine incident came to
pass.
Critics point to one troubling recent development: the decision by
commanders in Iraq in mid-September to combine information
operations, psychological operations and public affairs into a single
strategic communications office run by an Air Force brigadier general
who reports directly to Gen. George Casey, the American commander.
Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, wrote a
letter in late September warning American commanders of the problems
of lumping military public affairs in with information operations.
Myers warned that public affairs and information operations must
remain separate. But his warning seems to have fallen on deaf ears in
Iraq because civilian leaders in the Pentagon and the National
Security Council insisted on a blended effort of both public affairs
and psy-ops to woo Iraqi and Arab support for America's efforts in
Iraq.
In the old days of the Cold War America's propaganda war was fought
by the U.S. Information Agency, which was strictly forbidden from
distributing any propaganda inside the United States. USIA was first
gutted and then folded into the State Department during the mid-1990s.
Everyone involved in this argument would do well to heed Gen. Myers'
warning against mixing the liars and the truth-tellers in one pot.
That distinction was blurred during the Vietnam War and the image the
American public carried away was of the Five O'Clock Follies, the
daily official news briefing in Saigon where lies and spin were
dispensed along with the facts.
Believe me, we do not want to go there again.
ABOUT THE WRITER
Joseph L. Galloway is the senior military correspondent for Knight
Ridder Newspapers and co-author of the national best-seller "We Were
Soldiers Once ... and Young." Readers may write to him at
jgalloway at krwashington.com
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