[Shadow_Group] "PR Meets Psy-Ops in War on Terror: The use of misleading information as a military tool sparks debate in the Pentagon. Critics say the practice puts credibility at stake."

[shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca]

Well this does it! I don't think we will ever hear
about the need to "support" or "trust" the military or
Team Bush again.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-warinfo1dec01,0,1882598,print.story?coll=la-home-headlines<http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-warinfo1dec01,0,1882598,print.story?coll=la-home-headlines>

latimes.com
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-warinfo1dec01,0,321180.story?coll=la-home-headlines<http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-warinfo1dec01,0,321180.story?coll=la-home-headlines>
THE NATION
PR Meets Psy-Ops in War on Terror
The use of misleading information as a military tool
sparks debate in the Pentagon. Critics say the
practice puts credibility at stake.
By Mark Mazzetti
Times Staff Writer

December 1, 2004

WASHINGTON - On the evening of Oct. 14, a young Marine
spokesman near Fallouja appeared on CNN and made a
dramatic announcement.

"Troops crossed the line of departure," 1st Lt. Lyle
Gilbert declared, using a common military expression
signaling the start of a major campaign. "It's going
to be a long night." CNN, which had been alerted to
expect a major news development, reported that the
long-awaited offensive to retake the Iraqi city of
Fallouja had begun.

In fact, the Fallouja offensive would not kick off for
another three weeks. Gilbert's carefully worded
announcement was an elaborate psychological operation
- or "psy-op" - intended to dupe insurgents in
Fallouja and allow U.S. commanders to see how
guerrillas would react if they believed U.S. troops
were entering the city, according to several Pentagon
officials.

In the hours after the initial report, CNN's Pentagon
reporters were able to determine that the Fallouja
operation had not, in fact, begun.

"As the story developed, we quickly made it clear to
our viewers exactly what was going on in and around
Fallouja," CNN spokesman Matthew Furman said.

Officials at the Pentagon and other U.S. national
security agencies said the CNN incident was not an
isolated feint - the type used throughout history by
armies to deceive their enemies - but part of a broad
effort underway within the Bush administration to use
information to its advantage in the war on terrorism.

The Pentagon in 2002 was forced to shutter its
controversial Office of Strategic Influence (OSI),
which was opened shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks,
after reports that the office intended to plant false
news stories in the international media. But officials
say that much of OSI's mission - using information as
a tool of war - has been assumed by other offices
throughout the U.S. government.

Although most of the work remains classified,
officials say that some of the ongoing efforts include
having U.S. military spokesmen play a greater role in
psychological operations in Iraq, as well as planting
information with sources used by Arabic TV channels
such as Al Jazeera to help influence the portrayal of
the United States.

Other specific examples were not known, although U.S.
national security officials said an emphasis had been
placed on influencing how foreign media depict the
United States.

These efforts have set off a fight inside the Pentagon
over the proper use of information in wartime. Several
top officials see a danger of blurring what are
supposed to be well-defined lines between the stated
mission of military public affairs - disseminating
truthful, accurate information to the media and the
American public - and psychological and information
operations, the use of often-misleading information
and propaganda to influence the outcome of a campaign
or battle.

Several of those officials who oppose the use of
misleading information spoke out against the practice
on the condition of anonymity.

"The movement of information has gone from the public
affairs world to the psychological operations world,"
one senior defense official said. "What's at stake is
the credibility of people in uniform."

Pentagon spokesman Lawrence Di Rita said he recognized
the concern of many inside the Defense Department, but
that "everybody understands that there's a very
important distinction between information operations
and public affairs. Nobody has offered serious
proposals that would blur the distinction between
these two functions."

Di Rita said he had asked his staff for more
information about how the Oct. 14 incident on CNN came
about.

One recent development critics point to is the
decision by commanders in Iraq in mid-September to
combine public affairs, psychological operations and
information operations into a "strategic
communications" office. An organizational chart of the
newly created office was obtained by The Times. The
strategic communications office, which began
operations Sept. 15, is run by Air Force Brig. Gen.
Erv Lessel, who answers directly to Gen. George W.
Casey, the top U.S. commander in Iraq.

Partly out of concern about this new office, Gen.
Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of
Staff, distributed a letter Sept. 27 to the Joint
Chiefs and U.S. combat commanders in the field warning
of the dangers of having military public affairs (PA)
too closely aligned with information operations (IO).

"Although both PA and IO conduct planning, message
development and media analysis, the efforts differ
with respect to audience, scope and intent, and must
remain separate," Myers wrote, according to a copy of
the letter obtained by The Times.

Pentagon officials say Myers is worried that U.S.
efforts in Iraq and in the broader campaign against
terrorism could suffer if world audiences begin to
question the honesty of statements from U.S.
commanders and spokespeople.

"While organizations may be inclined to create
physically integrated PA/IO offices, such
organizational constructs have the potential to
compromise the commander's credibility with the media
and the public," Myers wrote.

Myers' letter is not being heeded in Iraq, officials
say, in part because many top civilians at the
Pentagon and National Security Council support an
effort that blends public affairs with psy-ops to win
Iraqi support - and Arab support in general - for the
U.S. fight against the insurgency.

Advocates of these programs said that the advent of a
24-hour news cycle and the powerful influence of
Arabic satellite television made it essential that
U.S. military commanders and civilian officials made
the control of information a key part of their battle
plans.

"Information is part of the battlefield in a way that
it's never been before," one senior Bush
administration official said. "We'd be foolish not to
try to use it to our advantage."

And, supporters argue, it is necessary to fill a
vacuum left when the budgets for the State
Department's public diplomacy programs were slashed
and the U.S. Information Agency - a bulwark of the
nation's anticommunist efforts during the Cold War -
was gutted in the 1990s.

"The worst outcome would be to lose this war by
default. If the smart folks in the psy-op and civil
affairs tents can cast a truthful, persuasive message
that resonates with the average Iraqi, why not use the
public affairs vehicles to transmit it?" asked Charles
A. Krohn, a professor at the University of Michigan
and former deputy chief of public affairs for the
Army. "What harm is done, compared to what is gained?
For the first year of the war, we did virtually
nothing to tell the Iraqis why we invaded their
country and ejected their government. It's about time
we got our act together."

Advocates also cite a September report by the Defense
Science Board, a panel of outside experts that advises
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, which concluded
that a "crisis" in U.S. "strategic communications" had
undermined American efforts to fight Islamic extremism
worldwide.

The study cited polling in the Arab world that
revealed widespread hatred of the United States
throughout the Middle East. A poll taken in June by
Zogby International revealed that 94% of Saudi
Arabians had an "unfavorable" view of the United
States, compared with 87% in April 2002. In Egypt, the
second largest recipient of U.S. aid, 98% of
respondents held an unfavorable view of the United
States.

The Defense Science Board recommended a presidential
directive to "coordinate all components of strategic
communication including public diplomacy, public
affairs, international broadcasting and military
information operations."

Di Rita said there was general agreement inside the
Bush administration that the U.S. government was
ill-equipped to communicate its policies and messages
abroad in the current media climate.

"As a government, we're not very well organized to do
that," he said.

Yet some in the military argue that the efforts at
better "strategic communication" sometimes cross the
line into propaganda, citing some recent media
briefings held in Iraq. During a Nov. 10 briefing by
Marine Lt. Gen. John F. Sattler, reporters were shown
a video of Iraqi troops saluting their flag and
singing the Iraqi national anthem.

"Pretty soon, we're going to have the 5 o'clock
follies all over again, and it will take us another 30
years to restore our credibility," said a second
senior Defense official, referring to the
much-ridiculed daily media briefings in Saigon during
the Vietnam War.

According to several Pentagon officials, the strategic
communications programs at the Defense Department are
being coordinated by the office of the undersecretary
of Defense for policy, Douglas J. Feith.

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Copyright 2004 Los Angeles Times



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