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By Adel Safty Special to Gulf News, Published: June 01, 2008, 23:35
All governments engage in self-promotion and propaganda to influence public opinion and achieve a measure of thought control - overtly so in authoritarian regimes, and more subtley in democracies.
What distinguishes the Bush administration from other democratic governments, is the aggressiveness with which it engaged in propaganda, and the contempt with which it treated the people's democratic right to know the truth.
The Bush administration also co-opted the influential corporate media in its campaign of deception. Newspapers such as the Washington Post acted as a cheerleader for the war. The New York Times propagated the unfounded allegations of its disgraced reporter Judith Miller to build up a case for war. The New York Times later admitted that it had erred and apologised to its readers, but after the damage was done.
The deception campaign was multi-faceted. Documents revealed to and interviews with the New York Times confirmed that the Bush administration launched a major secretive propaganda war: "The campaign was begun by the White House," wrote the New York Times, "which set up a secret panel soon after the September 11 attacks to coordinate information operations by the Pentagon, other government agencies and private contractors."
The Pentagon hired two public relations firms: The Lincoln Group, and the Rendon Group. The Lincoln Group planted more than a 10,000 pro-American articles in Iraqi and Arab press. The Rendon Group targeted foreign news organisations critical of US policies.
Pentagon documents obtained by Rolling Stone, show that the Pentagon set up, in late 2001, a secret organisation called The Office of Strategic Influence to conduct "covert disinformation and deception operations - planting false news items in the media and hiding their origins".
Secret documents
The Pentagon's Office of Strategic Influence was also expected to "coerce" foreign journalists and plant false information overseas. Secret documents also showed that the Office was expected to "find ways to "punish" those who convey the "wrong message." (Rolling Stone, November 27, 2005)
Recently, two major studies further documented the various dimensions of the Bush administration's campaign of deception.
In January of this year, a study by the Centre for Public Integrity found that Bush and his senior administration officials made hundreds of false statements about Iraq. "Following 9/11," the study stated, "President Bush and seven top officials of his administration waged a carefully orchestrated campaign of misinformation about the threat posed by Saddam Hussain's Iraq." (The Centre for Public Integrity)
According to the study - the "first-ever analysis of the entire body of prewar rhetoric" - President Bush, for example, made 232 false statements about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and another 28 false statements about Iraq's links to Al Qaida."
"The cumulative effect of these false statements..." the study concluded, "was massive, with the media coverage creating an almost impenetrable din for several critical months in the run-up to war".
In April, the New York Times published an in-depth analysis of some 8,000 Pentagon documents which the paper had to sue the Bush administration to obtain.
The analysis reveals a carefully orchestrated propaganda campaign in which the Pentagon recruited some 75 retired military officers who were then hired by the major Television networks as "military analysts". These "analysts" effectively delivered the Bush administration's message to the American public without disclosing the source of their pro-war 'opinions.'
The deception campaign was approved at the top by then defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld who personally met with the 'analysts'.
The records examined by the New York Times reveal that these 'analysts' have also been briefed by officials from the White House including Vice-President Dick Cheney, and by officials from the State Department and the Justice Department including Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.
The 'analysts' were given access to classified information and to senior military leaders with substantial influence over contracting and budget decisions. Most of the 'analysts', the Times found, had ties with military contractors with vested interest in the war.
The Times cites the example of John C. Garrett, a retired Army colonel and 'analyst' for Fox News TV and radio, who is also a lobbyist at Patton Boggs, helping firms negotiate and secure Pentagon contracts. Garrett is quoted as writing in an email message to the Pentagon in January 2007: "Please let me know if you have any specific points you want covered or that you would prefer to downplay."
Returned home
The Bush administration flew the 'analysts' to Cuba where they were given tours of and briefings about Guantanamo. The 'analysts' returned home, appeared on the major Television networks and dutifully delivered the administration's message: Amnesty International is wrong; the Guantanamo detainees are well-treated, and it is their American guards who have to put up with abuse.
In 2002, to overcome the American public's resistance to the impending war against Iraq, columnists were paid to write favourably about the administration. Federal agencies "distributed to local TV stations hundreds of fake news segments with fawning accounts of administration accomplishments".
To make the case for the war, the military 'analysts' were given talking points to emphasise: "Iraq possessed chemical and biological weapons, was developing nuclear weapons, and might one day slip some to Al Qaida; an invasion would be a relatively quick and inexpensive "war of liberation"."
After the invasion of Iraq, Rumsfeld was pleased with the result. On April 12, 2003, he drafted a memorandum to an aid. "Let's think about having some of the folks who did such a good job as talking heads in after this thing is over," he wrote.
Rumsfeld and the Bush administration had good reasons to be pleased with the result of their multi-faceted deception campaign. Even in 2005 a majority of Bush supporters believed that weapons of mass destruction had been found in Iraq.
Professor Adel Safty's latest book, 'Leadership and Democracy', is published in New York.
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