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U.S. Is Said to Pay to Plant Articles in
Iraq Papers
By JEFF GERTH and SCOTT SHANE
December 1, 2005
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.
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