Pentagon Readies Efforts to Sway Sentiment Abroad
Tue Feb 19, 9:00 AM ET
By JAMES DAO and ERIC SCHMITT The New York Times
WASHINGTON, Feb. 18 The Pentagon is
developing plans to provide news items,
possibly even false ones, to foreign media
organizations as part of a new
effort to influence public sentiment
and policy makers in both friendly and
unfriendly countries, military officials
said.
The plans, which have not received
final approval from the Bush
administration, have stirred opposition
among some Pentagon officials who
say they might undermine the credibility
of information that is openly
distributed by the Defense Department's
public affairs officers.
The military has long engaged in
information warfare against hostile nations
for instance, by dropping leaflets
and broadcasting messages into
Afghanistan when it was still under
Taliban rule.
But it recently created the Office
of Strategic Influence, which is
proposing to broaden that mission
into allied nations in the Middle East,
Asia and even Western Europe. The
office would assume a role traditionally
led by civilian agencies, mainly
the State Department.
The small but well-financed Pentagon
office, which was established shortly
after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks,
was a response to concerns in the
administration that the United States
was losing public support overseas for
its war on terrorism, particularly in
Islamic countries.
As part of the effort to counter the
pronouncements of the Taliban, Osama
bin Laden and their supporters, the
State Department has already hired a
former advertising executive to run
its public diplomacy office, and the
White House has created a public
information "war room" to coordinate the
administration's daily message domestically
and abroad.
Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld,
while broadly supportive of the new
office, has not approved its specific
proposals and has asked the Pentagon's
top lawyer, William J. Haynes, to review
them, senior Pentagon officials
said.
Little information is available about
the Office of Strategic Influence, and
even many senior Pentagon officials and
Congressional military aides say
they know almost nothing about its
purpose and plans. Its multimillion
dollar budget, drawn from a $10 billion
emergency supplement to the Pentagon
budget authorized by Congress in
October, has not been disclosed.
Headed by Brig. Gen. Simon P. Worden of
the Air Force, the new office has
begun circulating classified proposals
calling for aggressive campaigns that
use not only the foreign media and the
Internet, but also covert operations.
The new office "rolls up all the
instruments within D.O.D. to influence
foreign audiences," its assistant for
operations, Thomas A. Timmes, a former
Army colonel and psychological operations
officer, said at a recent
conference, referring to the Department
of Defense. "D.O.D. has not
traditionally done these things."
One of the office's proposals calls
for planting news items with foreign
media organizations through outside
concerns that might not have obvious
ties to the Pentagon, officials familiar
with the proposal said.
General Worden envisions a broad
mission ranging from "black" campaigns that
use disinformation and other covert
activities to "white" public affairs
that rely on truthful news releases,
Pentagon officials said.
"It goes from the blackest of black
programs to the whitest of white," a
senior Pentagon official said.
Another proposal involves sending
journalists, civic leaders and foreign
leaders e-mail messages that promote
American views or attack unfriendly
governments, officials said.
Asked if such e-mail would be identified
as coming from the American
military, a senior Pentagon official
said that "the return address will
probably be a dot-com, not a dot- mil,"
a reference to the military's
Internet designation.
To help the new office, the Pentagon
has hired the Rendon Group, a
Washington-based international consulting
firm run by John W. Rendon Jr., a
former campaign aide to President
Jimmy Carter. The firm, which is being
paid about $100,000 a month, has
done extensive work for the Central
Intelligence Agency, the Kuwaiti royal
family and the Iraqi National
Congress, the opposition group seeking
to oust President Saddam Hussein.
Officials at the Rendon Group say terms
of their contract forbid them to
talk about their Pentagon work. But
the firm is well known for running
propaganda campaigns in Arab countries,
including one denouncing atrocities
by Iraq during its 1990 invasion of Kuwait.
The firm has been hired as the Bush
administration appears to have united
around the goal of ousting Mr. Hussein.
"Saddam Hussein has a charm
offensive going on, and we haven't
done anything to counteract it," a senior
military official said.
Proponents say the new Pentagon
office will bring much-needed coordination
to the military's efforts to influence
views of the United States overseas,
particularly as Washington broadens the
war on terrorism beyond Afghanistan.
But the new office has also stirred a
sharp debate in the Pentagon, where
several senior officials have questioned
whether its mission is too broad
and possibly even illegal.
Those critics say they are disturbed
that a single office might be
authorized to use not only covert
operations like computer network attacks,
psychological activities and deception,
but also the instruments and staff
of the military's globe- spanning
public affairs apparatus.
Mingling the more surreptitious
activities with the work of traditional
public affairs would undermine the
Pentagon's credibility with the media,
the public and governments around
the world, critics argue.
"This breaks down the boundaries
almost completely," a senior Pentagon
official said.
Moreover, critics say, disinformation
planted in foreign media
organizations, like Reuters or
Agence France-Presse, could end up being
published or broadcast by American
news organizations.
The Pentagon and the Central Intelligence
Agency are barred by law from
propaganda activities in the United
States. In the mid-1970's, it was
disclosed that some C.I.A. programs
to plant false information in the
foreign press had resulted in articles
published by American news
organizations.
Critics of the new Pentagon office
also argue that governments allied with
the United States are likely to object
strongly to any attempts by the
American military to influence media
within their borders.
"Everybody understands using
information operations to go after
nonfriendlies," another senior Pentagon
official said. "When people get
uncomfortable is when people use the
same tools and tactics on friendlies."
Victoria Clarke, the assistant
secretary of defense for public information,
declined to discuss details of the new
office. But she acknowledged that its
mission was being carefully reviewed by
the Pentagon.
"Clearly the U.S. needs to be as
effective as possible in all our
communications," she said. "What we're
trying to do now is make clear the
distinction and appropriateness of who
does what."
General Worden, an astrophysicist who
has specialized in space operations in
his 27-year Air Force career, did not
respond to several requests for an
interview.
General Worden has close ties to his
new boss, Douglas J. Feith, the under
secretary of defense for policy, that
date back to the Reagan
administration, military officials said.
The general's staff of about 15
people reports to the office of the
assistant secretary of defense for
special operations and low-intensity
conflict, which is under Mr. Feith.
The Office for Strategic Influence
also coordinates its work with the White
House's new counterterrorism office,
run by Wayne A. Downing, a retired
general who was head of the Special
Operations command, which oversees the
military's covert information operations.
Many administration officials worried
that the United States was losing
support in the Islamic world after
American warplanes began bombing
Afghanistan in October. Those
concerns spurred the creation of the Office of
Strategic Influence.
In an interview in November, Gen.
Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff, explained the Pentagon's
desire to broaden its efforts to
influence foreign audiences, saying:
"Perhaps the most challenging piece
of this is putting together what we call
a strategic influence campaign quickly
and with the right emphasis. That's
everything from psychological operations
to the public affairs piece to
coordinating partners in this effort
with us."
One of the military units assigned to
carry out the policies of the Office
of Strategic Influence is the Army's
Psychological Operations Command. The
command was involved in dropping
millions of fliers and broadcasting scores
of radio programs into Afghanistan
encouraging Taliban and Al Qaeda soldiers
to surrender.
In the 1980's, Army "psyop" units, as
they are known, broadcast radio and
television programs into Nicaragua
intended to undermine the Sandinista
government. In the 1990's, they tried
to encourage public support for
American peacekeeping missions in the
Balkans.
The Office of Strategic Influence will
also oversee private companies that
will be hired to help develop information
programs and evaluate their
effectiveness using the same techniques
as American political campaigns,
including scientific polling and
focus groups, officials said.
"O.S.I. still thinks the way to go is
start a Defense Department Voice of
America," a senior military official
said. "When I get their briefings, it's
scary."
---
Source:
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=68&u=/nyt/
20020219/ts_nyt/pentagon_readies_efforts_to_sway_sentiment_abroad
Tue Feb 19, 9:00 AM ET
By JAMES DAO and ERIC SCHMITT The New York Times
WASHINGTON, Feb. 18 The Pentagon is
developing plans to provide news items,
possibly even false ones, to foreign media
organizations as part of a new
effort to influence public sentiment
and policy makers in both friendly and
unfriendly countries, military officials
said.
The plans, which have not received
final approval from the Bush
administration, have stirred opposition
among some Pentagon officials who
say they might undermine the credibility
of information that is openly
distributed by the Defense Department's
public affairs officers.
The military has long engaged in
information warfare against hostile nations
for instance, by dropping leaflets
and broadcasting messages into
Afghanistan when it was still under
Taliban rule.
But it recently created the Office
of Strategic Influence, which is
proposing to broaden that mission
into allied nations in the Middle East,
Asia and even Western Europe. The
office would assume a role traditionally
led by civilian agencies, mainly
the State Department.
The small but well-financed Pentagon
office, which was established shortly
after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks,
was a response to concerns in the
administration that the United States
was losing public support overseas for
its war on terrorism, particularly in
Islamic countries.
As part of the effort to counter the
pronouncements of the Taliban, Osama
bin Laden and their supporters, the
State Department has already hired a
former advertising executive to run
its public diplomacy office, and the
White House has created a public
information "war room" to coordinate the
administration's daily message domestically
and abroad.
Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld,
while broadly supportive of the new
office, has not approved its specific
proposals and has asked the Pentagon's
top lawyer, William J. Haynes, to review
them, senior Pentagon officials
said.
Little information is available about
the Office of Strategic Influence, and
even many senior Pentagon officials and
Congressional military aides say
they know almost nothing about its
purpose and plans. Its multimillion
dollar budget, drawn from a $10 billion
emergency supplement to the Pentagon
budget authorized by Congress in
October, has not been disclosed.
Headed by Brig. Gen. Simon P. Worden of
the Air Force, the new office has
begun circulating classified proposals
calling for aggressive campaigns that
use not only the foreign media and the
Internet, but also covert operations.
The new office "rolls up all the
instruments within D.O.D. to influence
foreign audiences," its assistant for
operations, Thomas A. Timmes, a former
Army colonel and psychological operations
officer, said at a recent
conference, referring to the Department
of Defense. "D.O.D. has not
traditionally done these things."
One of the office's proposals calls
for planting news items with foreign
media organizations through outside
concerns that might not have obvious
ties to the Pentagon, officials familiar
with the proposal said.
General Worden envisions a broad
mission ranging from "black" campaigns that
use disinformation and other covert
activities to "white" public affairs
that rely on truthful news releases,
Pentagon officials said.
"It goes from the blackest of black
programs to the whitest of white," a
senior Pentagon official said.
Another proposal involves sending
journalists, civic leaders and foreign
leaders e-mail messages that promote
American views or attack unfriendly
governments, officials said.
Asked if such e-mail would be identified
as coming from the American
military, a senior Pentagon official
said that "the return address will
probably be a dot-com, not a dot- mil,"
a reference to the military's
Internet designation.
To help the new office, the Pentagon
has hired the Rendon Group, a
Washington-based international consulting
firm run by John W. Rendon Jr., a
former campaign aide to President
Jimmy Carter. The firm, which is being
paid about $100,000 a month, has
done extensive work for the Central
Intelligence Agency, the Kuwaiti royal
family and the Iraqi National
Congress, the opposition group seeking
to oust President Saddam Hussein.
Officials at the Rendon Group say terms
of their contract forbid them to
talk about their Pentagon work. But
the firm is well known for running
propaganda campaigns in Arab countries,
including one denouncing atrocities
by Iraq during its 1990 invasion of Kuwait.
The firm has been hired as the Bush
administration appears to have united
around the goal of ousting Mr. Hussein.
"Saddam Hussein has a charm
offensive going on, and we haven't
done anything to counteract it," a senior
military official said.
Proponents say the new Pentagon
office will bring much-needed coordination
to the military's efforts to influence
views of the United States overseas,
particularly as Washington broadens the
war on terrorism beyond Afghanistan.
But the new office has also stirred a
sharp debate in the Pentagon, where
several senior officials have questioned
whether its mission is too broad
and possibly even illegal.
Those critics say they are disturbed
that a single office might be
authorized to use not only covert
operations like computer network attacks,
psychological activities and deception,
but also the instruments and staff
of the military's globe- spanning
public affairs apparatus.
Mingling the more surreptitious
activities with the work of traditional
public affairs would undermine the
Pentagon's credibility with the media,
the public and governments around
the world, critics argue.
"This breaks down the boundaries
almost completely," a senior Pentagon
official said.
Moreover, critics say, disinformation
planted in foreign media
organizations, like Reuters or
Agence France-Presse, could end up being
published or broadcast by American
news organizations.
The Pentagon and the Central Intelligence
Agency are barred by law from
propaganda activities in the United
States. In the mid-1970's, it was
disclosed that some C.I.A. programs
to plant false information in the
foreign press had resulted in articles
published by American news
organizations.
Critics of the new Pentagon office
also argue that governments allied with
the United States are likely to object
strongly to any attempts by the
American military to influence media
within their borders.
"Everybody understands using
information operations to go after
nonfriendlies," another senior Pentagon
official said. "When people get
uncomfortable is when people use the
same tools and tactics on friendlies."
Victoria Clarke, the assistant
secretary of defense for public information,
declined to discuss details of the new
office. But she acknowledged that its
mission was being carefully reviewed by
the Pentagon.
"Clearly the U.S. needs to be as
effective as possible in all our
communications," she said. "What we're
trying to do now is make clear the
distinction and appropriateness of who
does what."
General Worden, an astrophysicist who
has specialized in space operations in
his 27-year Air Force career, did not
respond to several requests for an
interview.
General Worden has close ties to his
new boss, Douglas J. Feith, the under
secretary of defense for policy, that
date back to the Reagan
administration, military officials said.
The general's staff of about 15
people reports to the office of the
assistant secretary of defense for
special operations and low-intensity
conflict, which is under Mr. Feith.
The Office for Strategic Influence
also coordinates its work with the White
House's new counterterrorism office,
run by Wayne A. Downing, a retired
general who was head of the Special
Operations command, which oversees the
military's covert information operations.
Many administration officials worried
that the United States was losing
support in the Islamic world after
American warplanes began bombing
Afghanistan in October. Those
concerns spurred the creation of the Office of
Strategic Influence.
In an interview in November, Gen.
Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff, explained the Pentagon's
desire to broaden its efforts to
influence foreign audiences, saying:
"Perhaps the most challenging piece
of this is putting together what we call
a strategic influence campaign quickly
and with the right emphasis. That's
everything from psychological operations
to the public affairs piece to
coordinating partners in this effort
with us."
One of the military units assigned to
carry out the policies of the Office
of Strategic Influence is the Army's
Psychological Operations Command. The
command was involved in dropping
millions of fliers and broadcasting scores
of radio programs into Afghanistan
encouraging Taliban and Al Qaeda soldiers
to surrender.
In the 1980's, Army "psyop" units, as
they are known, broadcast radio and
television programs into Nicaragua
intended to undermine the Sandinista
government. In the 1990's, they tried
to encourage public support for
American peacekeeping missions in the
Balkans.
The Office of Strategic Influence will
also oversee private companies that
will be hired to help develop information
programs and evaluate their
effectiveness using the same techniques
as American political campaigns,
including scientific polling and
focus groups, officials said.
"O.S.I. still thinks the way to go is
start a Defense Department Voice of
America," a senior military official
said. "When I get their briefings, it's
scary."
---
Source:
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=68&u=/nyt/
20020219/ts_nyt/pentagon_readies_efforts_to_sway_sentiment_abroad