Submitted by Sheldon Rampton on
The NATO Review has published an essay by Lieutenant-Colonel Steven Collins, the chief of PSYOPS (psychological operations) in NATO's Operations Division at Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe. Titled "Mind Games," the essay examines the use of "perception-management operations before, during and after Operation Iraqi Freedom.
Submitted by Sheldon Rampton on
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation has aired a glowing memorial to Paul Moran, its cameraman who was killed in March by a suicide bomber while filming the war in Iraq. The broadcast features fond recollections from Moran's colleagues, friends and family, while glossing over and rationalizing Moran's work for the Rendon Group, the secretive PR firm that has worked behind the scenes to promote the U.S. foreign interventions in Iraq and elsewhere.
Submitted by Sheldon Rampton on
"Letters from hometown soldiers describing their successes rebuilding Iraq have been appearing in newspapers across the country as U.S. public opinion on the mission sours," reports Ledyard King. "And all the letters are the same." A newspaper in Olympia, Washington noticed the pattern after receiving identically-worded letters from two different soldiers with the 2nd Battalion of the 503rd Airborne Infantry Regiment.
Submitted by Laura Miller on
Faced with falling poll numbers and domestic unease with the Iraq situation, the White House is again attempting to polish its image. "The Bush administration is undertaking a campaign to regenerate public support for its policies in Iraq, dispatching officials across the country to promote White House strategy and build momentum for its $87 billion proposal to rebuild the war-torn nation," Capitol Hill Blue reports.
Submitted by Sheldon Rampton on
"The most obvious proof that Bush officials hyped and distorted evidence about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction in the past is that they continue to hype and distort that evidence today, with a shamelessness that is stunning," writes Jay Bookman. "If you believe their version of the story, the fact that we have found no WMD in Iraq - and no WMD programs - is of little or no importance. ...
Submitted by Sheldon Rampton on
The PBS program Frontline has produced an excellent documentary tracing the roots of the Iraqi war back to the days immediately following Sept. 11, when Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld ordered the creation of a special intelligence operation to quietly begin looking for evidence that would justify the war.
Submitted by Sheldon Rampton on
The White House official who leaked the identity of CIA operative Valerie Plame did more than attack a political enemy, writes Shaun Waterman. Plame worked for the CIA "on the very issue the Bush administration says was at the heart of its decision to go to war with Iraq: weapons of mass destruction. ... Plame's outing, whomever did it, has damaged the very effort the White House said it was pursuing in going to war in the first place. A very important line has been crossed here. The integrity of the policy goals - non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction - is now seen by at least some in the White House as less important than the integrity of the message - we didn't exaggerate the case against Iraq. ... The message seems to have trumped everything, even the need to get it right in the war on terror." And as Walter Shapiro notes in USA Today, the Plame flap is only one of several scandalous recent developments related to the war in Iraq. "In the past week, three major Iraq-related developments should have, in theory, caused lasting embarrassment to the Bush administration," Shapiro writes. "But because none of these flaps touched on illegality, they have been treated as one-day stories."
Submitted by Laura Miller on
"British Prime Minister Tony Blair privately admitted before the Iraq war that Saddam Hussein had no weapons of mass destruction that could be used within 45 minutes, former Foreign Secretary Robin Cook has claimed," CNN International reports. Cook resigned his government post in protest of British involvement in Iraq. The Sunday Times of London published excerpts of Cook's new book, "Point of Departure," based on his diaries kept during the run-up to war.
Submitted by Laura Miller on
"On Sept. 29, a remarkable story appeared on the front page of The New York Times," William E. Jackson, Jr. writes in Editor & Publisher. Far down in the story there is a mea culpa for reporting by the Times' Judith Miller on Iraq's supposed weapons of mass destruction. Miller's stories relied heavily on information and defectors provided by the Iraqi National Congress's Ahmad Chalabi. "Miller is not a neutral, nor an objective journalist," Jackson writes.
Submitted by Sheldon Rampton on
A new study by the Program on International Policy Attitudes shows that a majority of Americans have held at least one of three mistaken impressions about the U.S.-led war in Iraq and those misperceptions contributed to much of the popular support for the war. The three common mistaken impressions are that: (1) U.S.
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