http://www.nytimes.com/2002/02/19/international/19PENT.html?todaysheadlines
Pentagon Readies Efforts to Sway
Sentiment Abroad
By JAMES
DAO and ERIC SCHMITT | New York Times
The
plans, which have not received final approval from the Bush administration,
have stirred opposition among some Pentagon officials who say they might
undermine the credibility of information that is openly distributed by the
Defense Department's public affairs officers.
The
military has long engaged in information warfare against hostile nations — for
instance, by dropping leaflets and broadcasting messages into
But
it recently created the Office of
Strategic Influence, which is proposing to broaden that mission
into allied nations in the
The
small but well-financed Pentagon office, which was established shortly after
the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, was a response to concerns in the
administration that the
As
part of the effort to counter the pronouncements of the Taliban, Osama bin
Laden and their supporters, the State Department has already hired a former
advertising executive to run its public diplomacy office, and the White House
has created a public information
"war room" to coordinate the administration's daily
message domestically and abroad.
Secretary
of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld, while broadly supportive of the new office, has
not approved its specific proposals and has asked the Pentagon's top lawyer,
William J. Haynes, to review them, senior Pentagon officials said.
Little
information is available about the Office of Strategic Influence, and even many
senior Pentagon officials and Congressional military aides say they know almost
nothing about its purpose and plans. Its multimillion-dollar budget, drawn from
a $10 billion emergency supplement to the Pentagon budget authorized by
Congress in October, has not been disclosed.
Headed
by Brig. Gen. Simon P. Worden of the
Air Force, the new office has begun circulating classified proposals calling
for aggressive campaigns that use not only the foreign media and the Internet,
but also covert operations.
The
new office "rolls up all the instruments within D.O.D. to influence
foreign audiences," its assistant for operations, Thomas A. Timmes, a
former Army colonel and psychological operations officer, said at a recent
conference, referring to the Department of Defense. "D.O.D. has not traditionally done these things."
One
of the office's proposals calls for planting
news items with foreign media organizations through outside
concerns that might not have obvious ties to the Pentagon, officials familiar
with the proposal said.
General
Worden envisions a broad mission ranging from "black" campaigns that
use disinformation and other covert activities to "white" public
affairs that rely on truthful news releases, Pentagon officials said.
"It
goes from the blackest of black programs to the whitest of white," a
senior Pentagon official said.
Another
proposal involves sending journalists, civic leaders and foreign leaders e-mail
messages that promote American views or attack unfriendly governments,
officials said.
Asked
if such e-mail would be identified as coming from the American military, a
senior Pentagon official said that "the return address will probably be a
dot-com, not a dot- mil," a reference to the military's Internet designation.
To
help the new office, the Pentagon has hired the Rendon Group, a Washington-based international
consulting firm run by John W. Rendon Jr., a former campaign aide to President
Jimmy Carter. The firm, which is being
paid about $100,000 a month, has done extensive work for the Central
Intelligence Agency, the Kuwaiti royal family and the Iraqi National Congress,
the opposition group seeking to oust President Saddam Hussein.
Officials
at the Rendon Group say terms of their contract forbid them to talk about their
Pentagon work. But the firm is well known for running propaganda campaigns in
Arab countries, including one denouncing atrocities by Iraq during its 1990
invasion of Kuwait.
The
firm has been hired as the Bush administration appears to have united around
the goal of ousting Mr. Hussein. "Saddam Hussein has a charm offensive going on, and we
haven't done anything to counteract it," a senior military official said.
Proponents
say the new Pentagon office will bring much-needed coordination to the
military's efforts to influence views of the United States overseas,
particularly as Washington broadens the war on terrorism beyond Afghanistan.
But
the new office has also stirred a sharp debate in the Pentagon, where several
senior officials have questioned whether its mission is too broad and possibly
even illegal.
Those critics say they are disturbed that a single
office might be authorized to use not only covert operations like computer
network attacks, psychological activities and deception, but also the
instruments and staff of the military's globe- spanning public affairs
apparatus.
Mingling
the more surreptitious activities with the work of traditional public affairs
would undermine the Pentagon's credibility with the media, the public and
governments around the world, critics argue.
"This
breaks down the boundaries almost completely," a senior Pentagon official
said.
Moreover,
critics say, disinformation planted in foreign media organizations, like
Reuters or Agence France-Presse, could end up being published or broadcast by
American news organizations.
The
Pentagon and the Central Intelligence Agency are barred by law from propaganda
activities in the United States. In the mid-1970's, it was disclosed that some
C.I.A. programs to plant false information in the foreign press had resulted in
articles published by American news organizations.
Critics
of the new Pentagon office also argue that governments allied with the United
States are likely to object strongly to any attempts by the American military
to influence media within their borders.
"Everybody
understands using information operations to go after non-friendlies,"
another senior Pentagon official said. "When people get uncomfortable is
when people use the same tools and tactics on friendlies."
Victoria
Clarke, the assistant secretary of defense for public information, declined to
discuss details of the new office. But she acknowledged that its mission was
being carefully reviewed by the Pentagon.
"Clearly
the U.S. needs to be as effective as possible in all our communications,"
she said. "What we're trying to do now is make clear the distinction and
appropriateness of who does what."
General
Worden, an astrophysicist who has specialized in space operations in his
27-year Air Force career, did not respond to several requests for an interview.
General
Worden has close ties to his new boss, Douglas J. Feith, the under secretary of
defense for policy, that date back to the Reagan administration, military
officials said. The general's staff of about 15 people reports to the office of
the assistant secretary of defense for special operations and low-intensity
conflict, which is under Mr. Feith.
The Office for
Strategic Influence also coordinates its work with the White House's new
counter terrorism office, run by Wayne A. Downing, a retired general who was
head of the Special Operations command, which oversees the military's covert
information operations.
Many
administration officials worried that the United States was losing support in
the Islamic world after American warplanes began bombing Afghanistan in
October. Those concerns spurred the creation of the Office of Strategic
Influence.
In
an interview in November, Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs
of Staff, explained the Pentagon's desire to broaden its efforts to influence
foreign audiences, saying:
"Perhaps
the most challenging piece of this is putting
together what we call a strategic influence campaign quickly and with the right
emphasis. That's everything from psychological operations to the public affairs
piece to coordinating partners in this effort with us."
One
of the military units assigned to carry out the policies of the Office of
Strategic Influence is the Army's
Psychological Operations Command. The command was involved in
dropping millions of fliers and broadcasting scores of radio programs into
In
the 1980's, Army "psyop" units, as they are known, broadcast radio
and television programs into Nicaragua intended to undermine the Sandinista
government. In the 1990's, they tried to encourage public support for American
peacekeeping missions in the Balkans.
The Office of
Strategic Influence will also oversee private companies that will be hired to
help develop information programs and evaluate their effectiveness using the
same techniques as American political campaigns, including scientific polling
and focus groups, officials said.
"O.S.I.
still thinks the way to go is start a Defense Department Voice of
America," a senior military official said. "When I get their
briefings, it's scary."