A controversial public relations program run by former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld's Pentagon was cleared of any wrong-doing by the agency's inspector general in a report published in November. The program used dozens of retired military officers working as analysts on television and radio networks as "surrogates" armed by the Pentagon with "the facts" in order to educate the public about the Department of Defense's operations and agenda.
At the same time, the report quoted participating analysts who believed that bullet points provided by Rumsfeld's staff advanced a "political agenda," that the program's intent "...was to move everyone's mouth on TV as a sock puppet" and that the program was "...a white-level psyop [psychological operations] program to the American people." It also found a "preponderance of evidence" that one analyst was dismissed from the program for being critical of former Defense Secretary Rumsfeld, while another analyst said a CNN official told him he was being dropped at the request of the White House.
Nevertheless, the inspector general exonerated the Pentagon, stating that it complied with Department of Defense (DoD) policies and regulations, including not using propaganda on the US public, while also claiming that retired military analysts, many of whom were affiliated with defense contractors, gained nothing financially or personally for the businesses they were affiliated with.
According to the media watchdog Media Matters, between January 1, 2002 and May 2008 the analysts exposed in the Times article "collectively appeared or were quoted as experts more than 4,500 times on ABC, ABC News Now, CBS, CBS Radio Network, NBC, CNN, CNN Headline News, Fox News, MSNBC, CNBC, and NPR," revealing the success and scope of Rumsfeld's program. However, as Glen Greenwald pointed out, that figure is actually low because there were many more analysts that the Pentagon was using who weren't mentioned in the article.
The inspector general issued an initial report in January 2009 which drew the same conclusions, but which was later recanted because "it was so riddled with inaccuracies and flaws that none of its conclusions could be relied upon." This calls into question how forthright, accurate and independent an internal Pentagon audit can be, especially in light of the fact that even Republican Senator Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) recently "blasted" the inspector general's work--giving the office a grade of D-minus in a June 1 report.
This updated report on the use of retired military analysts relied heavily on interviews with Rumsfeld subordinates to ascertain guidelines, procedures and intent because of a lack of written policies. The report also stated that the Pentagon contracted with a private company to provide media reports -- 48 in total -- that tracked the commentary of military analysts receiving Pentagon assistance. Other significant findings included 147 organized events provided for the military analysts, sponsored trips to Iraq and Guantanamo and the likely receipt of classified information.
Keith Urbahn, spokesman for former Defense Secretary Rumsfeld, told the Washington Times that "the New York Times should give back its Pulitzer" and the Wall Street Journal declared that the report was evidence that "the Pentagon wasn't running a secret propaganda shop, and scores of decorated military officers weren't rapacious pawns." However, Scott Horton, contributing editor at Harper's, has a different take:
"The Department of Defense is permitted to run recruitment campaigns and give press briefings to keep Americans informed about its operations, but it is not permitted to engage in 'publicity or propaganda' at home. The internal DoD review exonerating the practice of mobilizing and directing theoretically independent analysts apparently focuses on the fact that the program conforms with existing department rules, but it overlooks the high-level prohibition on 'publicity or propaganda,' which was plainly violated."
And we already know that the Bush administration made a habit, if not a policy, out of lying to the American public. The Center for Public Integrity, a nonpartisan, nonprofit investigative news organization, pointed out in January 2008,
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