So now the Iraqi people are going to get their own version of the Rochester
(com)Post Bulletin, the biggest disinformation rag in North America.
--- On Wed, 10/22/08, norgesen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
From: norgesen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: [cia-drugs] U.S. to Fund Pro-American Publicity in Iraqi Media
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Wednesday, October 22, 2008, 9:24 AM
U.S. to Fund Pro-American
Publicity in Iraqi Media
By Karen DeYoung and Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff
Writers
Friday, October 3, 2008; A01
The Defense Department will pay private U.S. contractors in Iraq up to $300
million over the next three years to produce news stories, entertainment
programs and public service advertisements for the Iraqi media in an effort to
"engage and inspire" the local population to support U.S. objectives and the
Iraqi government.
The new contracts -- awarded last week to four
companies -- will expand and consolidate what the U.S. military calls
"information/ psychological operations" in Iraq far into the future, even as
violence appears to be abating and U.S. troops have begun drawing down.
The military's role in the war of ideas has been fundamentally
transformed in recent years, the result of both the Pentagon's outsized
resources and a counterinsurgency doctrine in which information control is
considered key to success. Uniformed communications specialists and contractors
are now an integral part of U.S. military operations from Eastern Europe to
Afghanistan and beyond.
Iraq, where hundreds of millions of dollars have
been spent on such contracts, has been the proving ground for the
transformation. "The tools they're using, the means, the robustness of this
activity has just skyrocketed since 2003. In the past, a lot of this stuff was
just some guy's dreams," said a senior U.S. military official, one of several
who discussed the sensitive defense program on the condition of anonymity.
The Pentagon still sometimes feels it is playing catch-up in a
propaganda market dominated by al-Qaeda, whose media operations include
sophisticated Web sites and professionally produced videos and audios featuring
Osama bin Laden and his lieutenants. "We're being out-communicated by a guy in
a
cave," Secretary Robert M. Gates often remarks.
But Defense Department
officials think their own products have become increasingly imaginative and
competitive. Military and contractor-produced media campaigns, spotlighting
killings by insurgents, "helped in developing attitudes" that led Iraqis to
reject al-Qaeda in Iraq over the past two years, an official said. Now that the
insurgency is in disarray, he said, the same tools "could potentially be
helpful" in diminishing the influence of neighboring Iran.
U.S.-produced
public service broadcasts and billboards have touted improvements in government
services, promoted political reconciliation, praised the Iraqi military and
encouraged Iraqi citizens to report criminal activity. When national euphoria
broke out last year after an Iraqi singer won a talent contest in Lebanon, the
U.S. military considered producing an Iraqi version of "American Idol" to help
build nonsectarian nationalism. The idea was shelved as too expensive, an
official said, but "we're trying to think out of the box on" reconciliation..
One official described how part of the program works: "There's a video
piece produced by a contractor . . . showing a family being attacked by a group
of bad guys, and their daughter being taken off. The message is: You've got to
stand up against the enemy." The professionally produced vignette, he said, "is
offered for airing on various [television] stations in Iraq. . . . They don't
know that the originator of the content is the U.S. government. If they did,
they would never run anything."
"If you asked most Iraqis," he said,
"they would say, 'It came from the government, our own government.' "
The Pentagon's solicitation for bids on the contracts noted that media
items produced "may or may not be non-attributable to coalition forces." "If
they thought we were doing it, it would not be as effective," another official
said of the Iraqis. "In the Middle East, they are so afraid they're going to be
Westernized . . . that you have to be careful when you're trying to provide
information to the population."
The Army's counterinsurgency manual,
which Gen. David H. Petraeus co-wrote in 2006, describes information operations
in detail, citing them among the "critical" military activities "that do not
involve killing insurgents." Petraeus, who became the top U.S. commander in
Iraq
early last year, led a "surge" in combat troops and information warfare.
Some of the new doctrine emerged from Petraeus's own early experience in
Iraq. As commander of the 101st Airborne Division in northern Nineveh province
in 2003, he ensured that war-ravaged radio and television stations were brought
rapidly back on line. At his urging, the first TV programs included "Nineveh
Talent Search" and a radio call-in show hosted by his Arabic interpreter, Sadi
Othman, a Palestinian American.
Othman, a former New York cabdriver
employed by Reston-based SOS International, remained at Petraeus's side during
the general's subsequent Iraq deployments; the company refers to him as a
senior
adviser to Petraeus.
SOSi has been one of the most prominent
communications contractors working in Iraq, winning a two-year $200 million
contract in 2006 to "assist in gathering information, conducting analysis and
providing timely solutions and advice regarding cultural, religious, political,
economic and public perceptions. "
"We definitely believe this is a
growth area in the DOD," said Julian Setian, SOSi's chief operating officer..
"We
are seeing more and more requests for professional assistance in media-related
strategic communications efforts, specifically in gauging of perceptions in
foreign media with regard to U.S. operations."
The four companies that
will share in the new contract are SOSi, the Washington-based Lincoln Group,
Alexandria-based MPRI and Leonie Industries, a Los Angeles contractor. All
specialize in strategic communications and have done previous defense work.
Defense officials maintained that strict rules are enforced against
disseminating false information. "Our enemies have the luxury of not having to
tell the truth," Undersecretary of Defense Eric Edelman told a congressional
hearing last month. "We pay an extremely high price if we ever even make a
slight error in putting out the facts."
Contractors require security
clearances, and proof that their teams possess sufficient linguistic abilities
and knowledge of Iraqi culture. The Iraqi government has little input on U.S.
operations, although U.S. officials say they have encouraged Iraqis to be more
aggressive in molding public support.
The Pentagon is sensitive to
criticism that it has sometimes blurred the lines between public-affairs
activities and unattributed propaganda. As information operations in Iraq
expanded, some senior officers warned that they risked a return to
psychological
and deception operations discredited during the Vietnam War.
In 2006,
the Pentagon's inspector general found that media work that the Lincoln Group
did in Iraq was improperly supervised but legal. The contractor had prepared
news items considered favorable to the U.S. military and paid to place them in
the Iraqi media without attribution. Then-Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld
told reporters that his initial reaction to the anonymous pay-to-publish
program
was "Gee, that's not what we ought to be doing."
On Aug. 21, the day
before bids on the new contract were closed, the solicitation was reissued to
replace repeated references to information and psychological operations with
the
term "media services."
Senior military officials said that current media
placement is done through Iraqi middlemen and that broadcast time is usually
paid. But they said they knew of no recent instance of payment to place
unattributed newspaper articles. The officials maintained that news items are
now a minor part of the operation, which they said is focused on public service
promotions and media monitoring.
But a lengthy list of "deliverables"
under the new contract proposal includes "print columns, press statements,
press
releases, response-to- query, speeches and . . . opinion editorials"; radio
broadcasts "in excess of 300 news stories" monthly and 150 each on sports and
economic themes; and 30- and 60-minute broadcast documentary and entertainment
series.
Contractors will also develop and maintain Web sites; assess
news articles in the Iraqi, U.S. and international media; and determine ways to
counter coverage deemed negative, according to the contract solicitation the
government posted in May. Polls and focus groups will be used to monitor Iraqi
attitudes under a separate three-year contract totaling up to $45 million.
While U.S. law prohibits the use of government money to direct
propaganda at U.S. audiences, the "statement of work" included in the proposal,
written by the U.S. Joint Contracting Command in Iraq, notes the need to
"communicate effectively with our strategic audiences (i.e. Iraqi, pan-Arabic,
International, and U.S. audiences) to gain widespread acceptance of [U.S. and
Iraqi government] core themes and messages."
Lawmakers have often
challenged the propriety of the military's information operations, even when
they take place outside the United States. The Pentagon itself has frequently
lamented the need to undertake duties beyond combat and peacekeeping, and Gates
has publicly questioned the "creeping militarization" of tasks civilians
traditionally perform.
In 2006, President Bush put the State Department
in charge of the administration' s worldwide "strategic communications, " but
the
size of the military's efforts dwarf those of the diplomats. State estimates it
will spend $5.6 million on public diplomacy in Iraq in fiscal 2008. A provision
in the fiscal 2009 Defense Authorization Bill has called for a "close
examination" of the State and defense communications programs "to better
formulate a comprehensive strategy."
Some inside the military itself
have questioned the effectiveness of the defense program. "I'm not a huge fan"
of information operations, one military official said, adding that Iraqi
opinions -- as for most people -- are formed more by what they experience than
by what they read in a newspaper, hear on the radio or see on billboards.
"A lot of money is being thrown around," he said, "and I'm not sure it's
all paying off as much as we think it is."
http://www.corpwatc h.org/article. php?id=15207
http://www.washingt onpost.com/ wp-dyn/content/ article/2008/ 10/02/AR20081002
04223_pf. html
======
U.S.-Israel jet deal sought: Pentagon
backs sale of next-generation F-35s fighters to ally
by Stephen Manning, Chicago
Tribune
October 2nd, 2008
read background on arms
deal.
The Defense Department said this week that it wants to sell as many as 75
fighter jets to Israel in a $15.2 billion deal for the aircraft expected to be
the mainstay of air power in the United States and several other nations for
decades.
The Defense Security Cooperation Agency said it notified
Congress on Friday that Israel has asked to buy 25 of the F-35s made by
Lockheed
Martin Corp., with an option to buy 50 more later.
The sale would be the
first to a country outside the United States and eight partner nations that are
collaborating on the F-35, also known as the Joint Strike Fighter. The jet is
still under development and not in service, but the United States plans to
eventually acquire 2,458 planes for the Army, Marines and Air Force at a cost
of
$300 billion.
The F-35 was designed as a replacement for a range of
warplanes, including the F-16, which is a large component of many air forces
worldwide. Countries such as Spain, Singapore and Japan also have expressed
interest in the F-35.
Israel has said it plans to buy a fleet of F-35s
as it upgrades its military technology. The first batch of 25 would be the
variant of F-35 designed for conventional takeoff from military airfields, but
the later 50 could include a version that can land vertically.
While the
jet is expected to be widely used, the program has suffered some setbacks,
including delays and growing cost that have been criticized by government
auditors. When maintenance and service costs for the life of the jet are added
in, the cost of the F-35 to the United States could reach $1 trillion over the
next several decades.
http://www.corpwatc h.org/article. php?id=15206
===
U.S. approves $330 million in arms deals
for Israel
by Andrea
Shalal-Esa, Reuters
September 9th,
2008
The U.S. government on Tuesday said it had approved up to $330 million in
three separate arms deals for Israel, and sources tracking a much bigger deal
for 25 Lockheed Martin Corp F-35 fighter jets said that agreement could be
approved later this month.
Top Israeli and U.S. government officials
also met in Washington on Tuesday for the most senior bilateral high technology
dialogue ever between the two allies.
Co-chaired by U.S. Commerce
Undersecretary Mario Mancuso and two senior Israeli officials, the three-day
high tech forum is aimed at expanding secure high technology trade and
investment across a wide-range of promising technology areas.
While U.S.
and Israeli officials met in nearby Virginia, the Pentagon told Congress it had
approved three arms deals for bombs, Patriot missile upgrades and anti-armor
weapons. Lawmakers have 30 days to block the sales, but such action is rare..
The Defense Security Cooperation Agency, which oversees major arms
sales, said it approved the sale of three kits to upgrade Israel's Patriot
missile defense system, a deal valued at up to $164 million if all options are
exercised.
The kits, made by Raytheon Co, would help Israel develop and
maintain a strong and ready self-defense capability, the agency said.
It
also approved the sale of 28,000 M72A7 66mm light anti-armor weapons, 60,000
training rockets, and other equipment, a deal valued at up to $89 million. The
main contractor would be Talley Defense, based in Mesa Arizona.
Finally,
the government approved the sale of 1,000 GBU-9 small diameter bombs made by
Boeing Co, in a deal valued at up
to $77 million if all options are exercised.
A separate agreement that
would allow Lockheed to sell Israel 25 F-35 Joint Strike Fighters, plus an
option for at least 50 more, was also nearing approval, according to two
sources
tracking the deal closely and a top defense analyst.
They said the DSCA
hoped to notify Congress about the deal before lawmakers head back to their
districts to campaign for the November 4 election, possibly by the end of
September.
The Pentagon is solidly backing Israel's request for the
fighter jets, which are being designed by the United States and eight other
countries to replace the F-16 fighter jet.
But the two sides are still
working out the details of the exact configuration of the F-35 that Israel will
receive, said Loren Thompson, analyst with the Lexington Institute.
"There is strong administration support for selling F-35s to Israel,
however the government will need to determine which items are included in the
Israeli version since the technology is very sensitive," said Thompson.
Maj. Gen. Charles Davis, the Pentagon's program chief for the F-35, last
month told Reuters that Israel was getting the F-35 into its fleet "as quickly
as we possibly can."
Pinchas Buchris, director general of Israel's
defense ministry and one of the co-chairmen of the high-tech forum, told
Reuters
he would have a high-level meeting about the issue while in Washington this
week.
But he said the two countries were still continuing "tough"
discussions about various issues related to the F-35 sale, although he declined
to give any details.
"We still have a long way to go," Buchris said.
Mancuso said the forum, also attended by U.S. and Israel industry
executives, marked a big step forward after tensions between Israel and the
United States in the past over weapons sales.
He said Israel had made
positive changes in recent years, including establishment of the Defense Export
Controls Office, and enactment of a new law.
He said the United States
would continue to maintain tough export controls where needed, but it also
hoped
to expand collaboration with Israel in many promising high tech areas.
"Our technical collaboration will continue to grow as our broader
comfort on these issues grows," Mancuso said.
Buchris said Israel had
made many improvements in a drive to keep tighter control of defense exports,
and said that those efforts had been closely coordinated with the United
States.
(Reporting by Andrea Shalal-Esa; editing by Carol
Bishopric)
http://corpwatch. org/article. php?id=15205
