-Caveat Lector-
-----Original Message-----
From: International Justice Watch Discussion List
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
On Behalf Of Joanna Ensum
Sent: Wednesday, February 27, 2002 3:40 PM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Pentagon "defense marketing" unit closed
Rumsfeld's disinformation unit has been closed due to damage by
"inaccurate news reports".
There is a God.
Joanna
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld emphatically killed the Pentagon's
new Office of Strategic Influence, saying yesterday that inaccurate news
reports had damaged the new propaganda coordination office beyond
repair.
Rumsfeld defended the office even as he buried it. Even though much
of the media commentary was "off the mark," he told reporters at the
Pentagon, "the office has clearly been so damaged that it's . . . pretty
clear to me that it could not function effectively, so it's being closed
down."
Pressed by reporters about whether the office would have
disseminated false information overseas, as had been reported, Rumsfeld
insisted that it wouldn't have done so. At any rate, he said, the new
office's charter hadn't been completed, "so what it was to do was an
open question, even today as it ends its very short, prominent life."
Rumsfeld added, with characteristic vigor: "The office is done. It's
over. What do you want, blood?"
The swift demise of the new office, which was created in November to
better coordinate the military's dissemination of information overseas,
represents a victory for the military public affairs community and a
surprising setback for the new "information warfare" specialty.
Military public affairs specialists had worried that the new office
would blur the line between their work of dealing with the media and the
public and the "black" world of covert operations, which sometimes
involves disseminating false information. "I'm sure that the public
affairs community is having a drink tonight," said one veteran military
spokesman.
But specialists in information warfare -- which can cover anything
from dropping leaflets to hacking into foreign computers -- believed
that the Pentagon public affairs community had done a poor job in the
Afghan war, especially in putting U.S. views before foreign audiences.
"It's frustrating for us" to see the office shut down, one officer
involved in information operations said yesterday. He said the new
office was mainly involved in what might be called "defense marketing,"
and that only about 5 percent of its planned work would have involved
covert operations.
One idea under consideration, he said, was to seek to justify U.S.
actions to the Pakistani public by putting up billboards in that country
showing an image of the collapse of the World Trade Center towers on
Sept. 11 and indicating the death toll resulting from that day's
terrorist attacks in New York, at the Pentagon and in Pennsylvania.
"The lesson is what a lot of us have known for a long time, that
truth is always the best weapon, and everyone who works for Secretary
Rumsfeld knows that to be true," said Victoria Clarke, the Pentagon's
chief spokeswoman.
Rumsfeld said that the functions of the now-defunct office would be
carried on by other Pentagon offices. "We'll just have to do it with the
offices that existed previously," he said.
The public affairs veteran predicted that the propaganda function
now would be performed by other, lower-profile offices, perhaps by
private companies working on contract. But the officer involved in
information warfare said the incident has shaken the confidence of his
colleagues and has done some damage to their emerging specialty.
At the same briefing yesterday, Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of
the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that, with another 14 people turned over
by Pakistan over the past two days, there are now about 500 suspected
members of al Qaeda and the Taliban leadership in U.S. custody, with
about 300 being held at the U.S. Navy base in Guantanamo, Cuba, and
another 194 in captivity inside Afghanistan.
Myers said he expects that the number of captives will continue to
increase. "We still have a lot of people we've not looked at completely
that the Afghans and the Pakistanis have," he said.
Rumsfeld indicated that the top U.S. priority in interrogating the
detainees is to gather intelligence, and then to deal with them in terms
of possible law enforcement actions. "We are beginning that process
now," he said.
He said the U.S. government is "pretty close" to releasing the rules
under which trials might be held. Most of those rules have leaked
already, and they generally seem to resemble the U.S. military justice
system, legal experts say.
<A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/";>www.ctrl.org</A>
DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER
==========
CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic
screeds are unwelcomed. Substance�not soap-boxing�please! These are
sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'�with its many half-truths, mis-
directions and outright frauds�is used politically by different groups with
major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought.
That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and
always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no
credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply.
Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector.
========================================================================
Archives Available at:
http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html
<A HREF="http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html";>Archives of
[EMAIL PROTECTED]</A>
http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
<A HREF="http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/";>ctrl</A>
========================================================================
To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email:
SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email:
SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Om
