Pentagon Plan to Influence Opinion (The Office of Strategic Influence-To Plant False News Stories)

AP/Yahoo! News ^ | Tue Feb 19, 9:54 PM ET | SALLY BUZBEE

[Spar]

White House - AP Cabinet & State

Pentagon Plan to Influence Opinion

Tue Feb 19, 9:54 PM ET

By SALLY BUZBEE, Associated Press Writer

Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz addresses the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics in Washington Tuesday, February 19, 2002. Wolfowitz did not comment a proposed new Pentagon campaign to influence public opinion in both hostile and friendly nations to help the war against terrorism --a still-developing effort that critics say could spread false information at home and abroad. But he did say in his speech to the defense contractors, that "This is a battle for minds.'' ``Our victoryon the ground in Afghanistan has already changed substantially how this conflict is perceived, even in the Muslim world.''(AP Photo/Dennis Cook) The Pentagon (news - web sites) is working on a plan to influence public opinion in both hostile and friendly nations to help the war against terrorism — a still-developing effort that critics say could spread false information at home and abroad.

The Office of Strategic Influence, set up after the Sept. 11 attacks, has come up with proposals including the placing of news items — false if need be — with foreign news organizations, a defense official said Tuesday on condition of anonymity.

The office is considering having an outside organization distribute the information so it would not be apparent it came from the Defense Department, the official said.

The Bush administration worries it is losing public support overseas, especially among Muslims who believe the United States is hostile toward Islam.

"This is a battle for minds," Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz said Tuesday in a speech to defense contractors. "Our victory on the ground in Afghanistan (news - web sites) has already changed substantially how this conflict is perceived, even in the Muslim world."

Wolfowitz did not comment on the proposed new campaign, and top U.S. officials have not yet approved it.

Retired Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf, who commanded U.S. troops during the nation's Persian Gulf war (news - web sites), dismissed reports about the potential plan: "We don't deliberately lie to other people ... That's not America. That's not what we do."

The United States considered spreading false propaganda in the early stages of the Gulf War but quickly dismissed the idea, he said.

"At that time, we said 'No'," Schwarzkopf said during a speech in Daytona Beach, Fla. "Not that much has changed from then until now."

At the State Department, spokesman Richard Boucher said the department was aware of the Pentagon office but declined to discuss its functions.

Asked the State Department policy, Boucher said, "We provide accurate and truthful information."

The government has used covert tactics — including disinformation — to undermine foreign governments in the past. But those mostly have been super-secret CIA (news - web sites) operations against enemies such as Iraq and Cuba.

Such covert action by the CIA requires presidential authority and cannot be conducted against Americans.

The military also has long conducted wartime "psychological operations" such as dropping leaflets and broadcasting messages, as it did when fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan.

The Pentagon plans, if approved, would significantly broaden such information efforts.

Critics immediately said they worried that any campaign including deliberate lies would both undermine U.S. credibility overseas and circle back to dupe Americans, too.

"Anything they spread overseas will come back here, because information travels so quickly. ... Our own population will then hear it and believe it," said Shibley Telhami, a Mideast specialist at the Brookings Institution. "It will affect our decisions, and I see that as a tremendous danger."

Ted Galen Carpenter, a foreign policy analyst at the Cato Institute, said he understands a desire to throw enemies off, but he also said, "Lies have a nasty way of being found out."

"We're already viewed with a certain amount of suspicion," Carpenter said. "If we're caught in blatant lies, that hostility will increase."

At the Pentagon, some officials said privately that they worried any such campaign also could hurt the credibility of military offices that provide information to reporters. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld told reporters last fall that he would never lie to them.

Galen said, it is "perfectly appropriate for the United States as part of its diplomacy to make the best case we can for our policies."

Since Sept. 11, the State Department has begun an aggressive effort to promote American viewpoints and policies overseas. And the White House has set up a "war room" to quickly respond to allegations overseas.

But Rumsfeld said in mid-December that efforts to combat anti-Americanism were one aspect of the war that lagged at first. He said U.S. officials needed to think about how to more effectively promote America's position.

The Office of Strategic Influence is headed by an Air Force brigadier general, Simon P. Worden, and coordinates with a new White House counterterrorism office run by a retired general, Wayne Downing, who once headed the military's Special Operations command. The Pentagon office already has hired the Washington-based Rendon Group consulting firm, which has done extensive work for the CIA, The New York Times said in Tuesday editions.

In the late 1980s, former newsman Bernard Kalb quit as the State Department spokesman after reports that the Reagan administration had devised a misinformation policy. That policy included leaking to reporters false information in an effort to convince Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi that the United States was about to attack. Kalb said he never knowingly gave out false information.

[Spar]

They needed a new way to spread false stories after the old way of doing things was exposed after the Kosovo war?

CNN, NPR Admit Army Psy-Ops Link

I want to thank the patriots in the Defense Department (Office of Naval Intelligence?) for leaking this story at great risks to themselves.

Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz fills me with great unease.

[Spar]

God save the Republic

[VaBthang4]

I read the article down to: "that critics say could"

I'M OUT!

[Timesink]

If American reporters are too lazy to check Pentagon stories, that's THEIR fault, not the Pentagon's.

[PRND21]

War time necessity.

[GeronL]

wouldn't this be a secret? the media are stupid, plain ignorant

[JohnHuang2]

Unless some scumbag Clinton-holdover is leaking this stuff to the press.

[Spar]

Retired Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf, who commanded U.S. troops during the nation's Persian Gulf war (news - web sites), dismissed reports about the potential plan: "We don't deliberately lie to other people ... That's not America. That's not what we do." The United States considered spreading false propaganda in the early stages of the Gulf War but quickly dismissed the idea, he said.

They are not talking about fooling the enemy like the old "Allies plan to invade Europe via Dunkirk and then go to Normandy" trick. This is different. This is beyond that.

This convinces me as a conservative that govt. is a beast best starved of funds and kept impotent.

[PRND21]

This convinces me as a conservative that govt. is a beast best starved of funds and kept impotent.

Too late.
For the next best thing...vote Republican.

[Spar]

Am I over reacting? This is making me lose my bearings. Neo-Cons like Wolfowitz can be more dangerous than Clinton with his trousers down.

[ipfreely]

that critics say could spread false information at home and abroad

...as opposed to politicians who spread "true" information at home and abroad? If we're going to publicize lies from the pentagon (and I'm not saying we shouldn't), how about lies from the senate and the house?

[GretchenEE]

Oh man, this is gonna really get the Democrats' collective knickers in a twist. If the Pubbie administration plants lies ("The government has used covert tactics — including disinformation — to undermine foreign governments in the past") and is planning to do so again, only more aggressively), then they'll actually be talking more like Dems, and it's going to be verra verra difficult for the party of donkeys to: 1) discern when they're being lied to because the lie will sound so plausible; and 2) get mad over a government policy to spread disinformation, because that would expose their incredible hypocrisy; and 3) get them Dems all confused. You tell the truth to a dem, he goes into counterattack mode. You tell him a lie ... well, his wiring gets fried. hehe

[Hillarys Gate Cult]

So the lamestream media sure doesn't mind prostituting itself for the Democrats by using their slanted and inaccurate stories, but when it's for the benefit of America they balk. Anyone need more proof of their leftist bias?

[Tree of Liberty]

"In war-time, truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies."
-- Winston Churchill

[Ranger]

First this nonsense should be left to the CIA and not run by the Pentagon. CIA does it better and idiots at Pentagon held a press conference to discuss plans to issue disinformation. What a bad idea.

Second such discussion will only begin to discredit US comments on terrorism. Since much of what is said about al-Qaeda and others can't be independently verified, the fact that the U.S. has been relatively truthful to date tends to give us the benefit of the doubt. Take that away and we are just another propaganda machine which will soon be distrusted by our allies and our own citizens.

Better to take the moral high ground on this campaign. If disinformation is to be released, let it occur via CIA and not the Pentagon briefing room.

[angkor]

I thought they'd always been doing this. What's new?

[gratefulwharffratt]

Am I over reacting? This is making me lose my bearings. Neo-Cons like Wolfowitz can be more dangerous than Clinton with his trousers down.

Has anybody even considered the notion that this can be used to ferret out disloyal allies, and disloyal Leaky Leahy types in Washington??

Suppose that some underling at the Pentagon leaks to the F*#%ing Rat Bastard John Edwards that we will actually attack SYRIA, INSTEAD OF IRAQ NEXT.

Care to guess how many hours later he would be in front of cameras spilling the beans in a roundabout way??

Rats CANNOT be trusted. Untrustworthy rats SHOULD be exposed!!!!!!!!!!!

Another use could be to get ALL of the rats to attack what we WON'T be doing. Let's say that "W" and his boys LEAK out that we believe that Outer Mongolia is a clear and present danger to the US... The rats would be decrying it within the hour.

For three weeks we would see them at every DemonRAT media outlet (that means EVERY member of the mass media EXCEPT the FNC and the Rush show.) screaming bloody murder about how we should NOT attack Outer Mongolia. Meanwhile, back at the ranch (literally), "W" and his boys could get back to planning our security, unfettered by naysaying backstabbing Rats at every turn.