The Rendon Group [3], a secretive PR firm whose government clients have included the Pentagon, the CIA, and USAID, has gone to work for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, trade publication O'Dwyer's PR Daily reports. The Washington D.C.-based firm is providing "strategic communications counsel, media analysis and consultation support services" to the Joint Chiefs, combatant commanders and top military advisors. O'Dwyer's reports that the Joint Chiefs exercised an option on the Rendon Groups initial four-month $397,000 contract with the Pentagon, awarded without bid following the 9/11 attacks. The Rendon Group has been credited with creating the Iraqi National Congress in the aftermath of the 1991 Persian Gulf War. The New Yorker's Seymour Hersch reported last year that Rendon received more than $100 million from the CIA for clandestine operations in Iraq between 1991-1996.