We have a new update on the Pentagon Propaganda story we previously reported on here and here.
Congressional Quarterly is reporting today that the Federal Communications Commission is investigating this matter. The story says, "The FCC is looking into whether TV networks and certain on-air analysts broke the law by failing to disclose to viewers that the apparently independent analysts were in fact part of a Pentagon-funded information campaign, a spokesman for the commission said."
Read about this past week's efforts by Common Cause. We have another occasion to celebrate: Common Cause is relaunched in the state of Hawaii.
Federal Elections Commission (FEC): Time to Rethink It
CC President Bob Edgar sent a
letter on May 21 to the Senate Committee on Rules and Administration Chair, Senator Dianne Feinstein, to coincide with their meeting to consider the nominations of three candidates to the FEC. He stated that it is time to rethink the FEC. He urged them to take advantage of the opportunity their meeting affords by embarking on a plan to create a new and better designed federal election agency that could enforce the campaign finance laws Congress passes and that would avoid the politicization that has made the current FEC an ineffective and failed agency. CC believes there are models for an FEC that Congress can adopt that will put upholding the nation’s campaign finance laws above party loyalty. One model of other more effective law enforcement agencies, for example, are those agencies headed by a single administrator who is appointed for a fixed term by the President and confirmed by the Senate.
Could it be true? Could the federal administration be about to be held accountable? It's too soon to tell, but at least Congress isn't dropping the ball on THIS one.
Congress passed an amendment Friday to the annual military authorization bill that would mandate investigations of the
Pentagon's propaganda program by both the Department of Defense's inspector general's office and Congress's investigative arm, the Government Accountability Office.
The program being investigated is the recently exposed Pentagon public affairs program that sought to transform retired military officers who work as television and radio analysts into "message force multipliers" who could be counted on to echo Bush administration talking points about Iraq, Afghanistan, Guantánamo and terrorism in general.
According to the
New York Times story on this:
The G.A.O. said it had already begun looking into the program and would give a legal opinion on whether it violated longstanding prohibitions against spending government money to spread propaganda to audiences in the United States.
The Defense Department suspended the program last month, just days after it was the focus of an article in The New York Times. The article described an ambitious Pentagon campaign to cultivate dozens of military analysts as "surrogates" to generate favorable coverage of the administration's wartime performance. The analysts, many with undisclosed ties to military contractors, were wooed in hundreds of private briefings with senior government officials.
The inspector general's office said its inquiry would specifically look at whether special access to Pentagon leaders "may have given the contractors a competitive advantage."
The House amendment, adopted by voice vote on Thursday night, would make permanent a domestic propaganda ban that until now has been enacted annually in the military authorization bill; the Senate is still working on its version of the bill.
In debating the amendment, the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, Representative Ike Skelton, Democrat of Missouri, said he was "sorely distressed" about the Pentagon campaign, and Representative Rosa DeLauro, Democrat of Connecticut, argued that it amounted to nothing more than illegal "domestic propaganda."
"It is a military-industrial-media complex," Ms. DeLauro said.
Representative Paul W. Hodes, Democrat of New Hampshire, added: "The American people were spun by Bush administration message multipliers. They were fed administration talking points believing they were getting independent military analysis."
Representative Duncan Hunter of California, the ranking Republican on the Armed Services Committee, objected to the amendment, arguing that retired officers working as military analysts were a "great asset" for the country.
"The idea that somehow Don Rumsfeld got these people in a room and told them what to say, if you believe that you don't believe in the independence of these general officers," Mr. Hunter said. "None of them are used to having people tell them what to say."
And Representative Paul C. Broun, Republican of Georgia, said: "Of course Americans engage in propaganda. It's a vital part of the mission of the United States to promote democracy and protect our country from harm."
Thank you Congress for not dropping this issue. On the surface, it appears there has been a severe abuse of power, and it has damaged America in many ways.
Sen. John Kerry has launched a petition drive asking that the General Accounting Office investigate the Pentagon's role in producing retired military experts to spread favorable press coverage of the Bush administration's prosecution of the Iraq war.
The major TV news outlets have done little if any coverage of this story - which broke two weeks ago - either out of embarrassment or self-preservation. Under federal law, it is illegal for the government to spread propaganda within the borders of the U.S.
The New York Times yesterday published an expose' of how the Bush administration manipulated the trust America has in the media and the trust the media has in its analysts.
What this investigation shows is the following:
* The Pentagon and Donald Rumsfeld recruited former military officials to be their mouthpieces in the media but under the guise of being independent experts;
* These military analysts were fed talking points by the administration but were not to reveal their relationship with the administration;
* Many of these analysts were involved with securing military contracts for themselves or others, and benefitted from the increased access - and conversely were intimidated into not straying from the talking points for fear of losing contracts;
* The development of this propaganda machine began before 9/11 and was utilized to generate support for attacking Iraq and is now being used to make Iran the new boogieman;
* Former Attorney General Gonzales also used the propaganda machine to justify the use of warrantless wiretapping.
This story is breaking and we expect many more details to emerge. But there are several points to be made here. First, it was wrong for the administration to use the carrot and stick of military contracts to deceive the American public. Second, it was wrong for the administration to betray the trust of the American public by trotting out spokespeople under the guise of being independent. And third, it was wrong for the news networks to not look into the conflicts of interest of their supposed independent analysts.
We encourage Congress to investigate this matter further so the public can understand exactly what happened here. If it is shown that the administration tied government contracts to political support in a public forum, heads should roll.
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