U.S.
Is Said to Pay to Plant Articles in Iraq Papers
December
1, 2005
By
JEFF GERTH and SCOTT SHANE
WASHINGTON,
Nov. 30 - Titled "The Sands Are Blowing Toward a Democratic Iraq," an
article written this week for publication in the Iraqi press was scornful of
outsiders' pessimism about the country's future.
"Western
press and frequently those self-styled 'objective' observers of Iraq are often
critics of how we, the people of Iraq, are proceeding down the path in
determining what is best for our nation," the article began. Quoting the
Prophet Muhammad, it pleaded for unity and nonviolence.
But
far from being the heartfelt opinion of an Iraqi writer, as its language
implied, the article was prepared by the United States military as part of a
multimillion-dollar covert campaign to plant paid propaganda in the Iraqi news
media and pay friendly Iraqi journalists monthly stipends, military contractors
and officials said.
The
article was one of several in a storyboard, the military's term for a list of
articles, that was delivered Tuesday to the Lincoln Group, a Washington-based
public relations firm paid by the Pentagon, documents from the Pentagon show.
The contractor's job is to translate the articles into Arabic and submit them
to Iraqi newspapers or advertising agencies without revealing the Pentagon's
role. Documents show that the intended target of the article on a democratic
Iraq was Azzaman, a leading independent newspaper, but it is not known whether
it was published there or anywhere else.
Even
as the State Department and the United States Agency for International
Development pay contractors millions of dollars to help train journalists and
promote a professional and independent Iraqi media, the Pentagon is paying
millions more to the Lincoln Group for work that appears to violate fundamental
principles of Western journalism.
In
addition to paying newspapers to print government propaganda, Lincoln has paid
about a dozen Iraqi journalists each several hundred dollars a month, a person
who had been told of the transactions said. Those journalists were chosen
because their past coverage had not been antagonistic to the United States,
said the person, who is being granted anonymity because of fears for the safety
of those involved. In addition, the military storyboards have in some cases
copied verbatim text from copyrighted publications and passed it on to be
printed in the Iraqi press without attribution, documents and interviews
indicated.
In
many cases, the material prepared by the military was given to advertising
agencies for placement, and at least some of the material ran with an advertising
label. But the American authorship and financing were not revealed.
Military
spokesmen in Washington and Baghdad said Wednesday that they had no information
on the contract. In an interview from Baghdad on Nov. 18, Lt. Col. Steven A.
Boylan, a military spokesman, said the Pentagon's contract with the Lincoln
Group was an attempt to "try to get stories out to publications that
normally don't have access to those kind of stories." The military's top
commanders, including Gen. Peter Pace, the chairman of the joint chiefs of
staff, did not know about the Lincoln Group contract until Wednesday, when it
was first described by The Los Angeles Times, said a senior military official
who was not authorized to speak publicly.
Pentagon
officials said General Pace and other top officials were disturbed by the
reported details of the propaganda campaign and demanded explanations from
senior officers in Iraq, the official said.
When
asked about the article Wednesday night on the ABC News program
"Nightline," General Pace said, "I would be concerned about
anything that would be detrimental to the proper growth of democracy."
Others
seemed to share the sentiment. "I think it's absolutely wrong for the
government to do this," said Patrick Butler, vice president of the
International Center for Journalists in Washington, which conducts ethics
training for journalists from countries without a history of independent news
media. "Ethically, it's indefensible."
Mr.
Butler, who spoke from a conference in Wisconsin with Arab journalists, said
the American government paid for many programs that taught foreign journalists
not to accept payments from interested parties to write articles and not to
print government propaganda disguised as news.
"You
show the world you're not living by the principles you profess to believe in,
and you lose all credibility," he said.
The
Government Accountability Office found this year that the Bush administration
had violated the law by producing pseudo news reports that were later used on
American television stations with no indication that they had been prepared by
the government. But no law prohibits the use of such covert propaganda abroad.
The
Lincoln contract with the American-led coalition forces in Iraq has rankled
some military and civilian officials and contractors. Some of them described
the program to The New York Times in recent months and provided examples of the
military's storyboards.
The
Lincoln Group, whose principals include some businessmen and former military
officials, was hired last year after military officials concluded that the
United States was failing to win over Muslim public opinion. In Iraq, the
effort is seen by some American military commanders as a crucial step toward
defeating the Sunni-led insurgency.
Citing
a "fundamental problem of credibility" and foreign opposition to
American policies, a Pentagon advisory panel last year called for the
government to reinvent and expand its information programs.
"Government
alone cannot today communicate effectively and credibly," said the report
by the task force on strategic communication of the Defense Science Board. The
group recommended turning more often for help to the private sector, which it said
had "a built-in agility, credibility and even deniability."
The
Pentagon's first public relations contract with Lincoln was awarded in 2004 for
about $5 million with the stated purpose of accurately informing the Iraqi
people of American goals and gaining their support. But while meant to provide
reliable information, the effort was also intended to use deceptive techniques,
like payments to sympathetic "temporary spokespersons" who would not
necessarily be identified as working for the coalition, according to a contract
document and a military official.
In
addition, the document called for the development of "alternate or
diverting messages which divert media and public attention" to "deal
instantly with the bad news of the day."
Laurie
Adler, a spokeswoman for the Lincoln Group, said the terms of the contract did
not permit her to discuss it and referred a reporter to the Pentagon. But
others defended the practice.
"I'm
not surprised this goes on," said Michael Rubin, who worked in Iraq for
the Coalition Provisional Authority in 2003 and 2004. "Informational
operations are a part of any military campaign," he added.
"Especially in an atmosphere where terrorists and insurgents - replete
with oil boom cash - do the same. We need an even playing field, but cannot fight
with both hands tied behind our backs."
Two
dozen recent storyboards prepared by the military for Lincoln and reviewed by
The New York Times had a variety of good-news themes addressing the economy,
security, the insurgency and Iraq's political future. Some were written to
resemble news articles. Others took the form of opinion pieces or public
service announcements.
One
article about Iraq's oil industry opened with three paragraphs taken verbatim,
and without attribution, from a recent report in Al Hayat, a London-based
Arabic newspaper. But the military version took out a quotation from an oil
ministry spokesman that was critical of American reconstruction efforts. It
substituted a more positive message, also attributed to the spokesman, though
not as a direct quotation.
The
editor of Al Sabah, a major Iraqi newspaper that has been the target of many of
the military's articles, said Wednesday in an interview that he had no idea
that the American military was supplying such material and did not know if his
newspaper had printed any of it, whether labeled as advertising or not.
The
editor, Muhammad Abdul Jabbar, 57, said Al Sabah, which he said received
financial support from the Iraqi government but was editorially independent,
accepted advertisements from virtually any source if they were not
inflammatory. He said any such material would be labeled as advertising but
would not necessarily identify the sponsor. Sometimes, he said, the paper got
the text from an advertising agency and did not know its origins.
Asked
what he thought of the Pentagon program's effectiveness in influencing Iraqi
public opinion, Mr. Jabbar said, "I would spend the money a better
way."
The
Lincoln Group, which was incorporated in 2004, has won another government
information contract. Last June, the Special Operations Command in Tampa
awarded Lincoln and two other companies a multimillion-dollar contract to
support psychological operations. The planned products, contract documents
show, include three- to five- minute news programs.
Asked
whether the information and news products would identify the American
sponsorship, a media relations officer with the special operations command
replied, in an e-mail message last summer, that "the product may or may
not carry 'made in the U.S.' signature" but they would be identified as
American in origin, "if asked."
Eric
Schmitt contributed reporting from Washington for this article, and Kirk Semple
and Edward Wong from Baghdad.