What ever happened to Rummy's Office of Strategic Influence?

[maddezmom]

Pentagon office to spearhead information war
February 20, 2002 Posted: 4:55 AM EST (0955 GMT)


WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The Pentagon has established a new Office of Strategic Influence to market America's war on terrorism outside the United States, a Defense Department official said Tuesday.

The office will set up policies for information operations and warfare that will then be carried out by military specialists to "influence the hearts and minds of the opposition," the official said, adding that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has yet to approve any plans for new information operations.

The office was quietly set up after September 11 as part of the Bush administration's overall effort to reach Islamic populations around the world.

Information operations have been a major part of the military campaign in Afghanistan, with radio broadcasts by Commando Solo airplanes, the U.S. Air Force's airborne radio and TV broadcast mission, and extensive airdropping of leaflets.

~snip~

Under law, the Pentagon operation can only work outside the United States. Sources said that it may involve targeting international media but not U.S. media outlets.

Although "information deception" -- deliberately spreading false or misleading information -- is a part of information warfare policy and doctrine, the Pentagon has no specific plans to undertake deceptive operations using the international news media, the official said.

more:http://archives.cnn.com/2002/US/02/19/gen.strategic.influence/

Has it really gone away??

The Office of Strategic Influence, or OSI, was a department created by the United States Department of Defense on October 30, 2001, to support the War on Terrorism through psychological operations in targeted countries. The closure of the office was announced by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld soon after its existence became publicly known.

The OSI would have been a center for the creation of propaganda materials, for the stated purpose of misleading enemy forces or foreign civilian populations. After information on the office spread through US and foreign media in mid February 2002, intense discussions on purpose and scope of the office were reported. The discussions culminated in a public statement by Rumsfeld in late February that the office has been closed down.

Some argue that due to its secretive nature and stated purposes the existence of such an agency would be hard to determine. In fact, in November 2002, Rumsfeld stated in an interview that only the name of the office was abolished, that it still exists and continues to fulfill its original intended purposes.<1> Much of the OSI's responsibilities were shifted to the Information Operations Task Force. <2>

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_of_Strategic_Influence


Information Operations Task Force
From SourceWatch
The Information Operations Task Force (IOTF) is described as a unit -- "deeper in the Pentagon's bureaucracy" -- which assumed much of the operations of the Office of Strategic Influence after it was shut down in February 2002. According to "Pentagon documents, the Rendon Group played a major role in the IOTF. The company was charged with creating an 'Information War Room' to monitor worldwide news reports at lightning speed and respond almost instantly with counterpropaganda," James Bamford reported November 17, 2005, in Rolling Stone magazine.

In his February 6, 2002, "Posture Statement" before the 107th Congress House Armed Services Committee, General Richard B. Myers, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said "The second aspect of information operations highlighted by the Afghan campaign is the importance of a well-integrated information campaign. To that end, the Department of Defense (DOD) activated an information operations task force focused on winning the information campaign against global terrorism. This task force is committed to developing, coordinating, deconflicting, and monitoring the delivery of timely, relevant, and effective messages to targeted international audiences."

Regarding the demise of the Office of Strategic Influence, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld told reporters November 18, 2002: "Fine, you want to savage this thing, fine. I'll give you the corpse. There's the name. You can have the name, but I'm going to keep doing every single thing that needs to be done, and I have." <1>

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Information_Operations_Task_Force

Rendon Group
From SourceWatch
The Rendon Group is a secretive public relations firm that has assisted a number of U.S. military interventions in nations including Argentina, Colombia, Haiti, Iraq, Kosovo, Panama and Zimbabwe. Rendon's activities include organizing the Iraqi National Congress, a PR front group designed to foment the overthrow of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.

In a 1998 speech to the National Security Conference (NSC), company founder John Rendon described himself as "an information warrior, and a perception manager. This is probably best described in the words of Hunter S. Thompson, when he wrote 'When things turn weird, the weird turn pro.'"

"Through its network of international offices and strategic alliances," the Rendon Group website boasted in 2002, "the company has provided communications services to clients in more than 78 countries, and maintains contact with government officials, decision-makers, and news media around the globe."

The Chicago Tribune reports that the Rendon Group has garnered more than $56 million in Pentagon work since September 2001. <1>
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Rendon_Group

[maddezmom]

1. IG: No evidence of PR manipulation of war

IG: No evidence of PR manipulation of war
~snip~

"We did not find evidence that the DOD hired the Rendon Group to deliberately create conditions that would convince the American people and Congress that Iraq was an imminent threat," states the summary of the classified report, dated March 6.

The Rendon Group, based in Washington and Boston, provides strategic communications, media analysis, news monitoring and crisis management services. It is best known for its role in helping organize the Iraqi National Congress, the Ahmed Chalabi-led group that lobbied heavily for the ouster of Saddam Hussein for the decade leading up to the Iraq invasion.

Among other defense contracts, the Army in 2005 hired the Rendon Group for a one year, $6.4 million "strategic communications operations support" contract.

The short executive summary suggests the IG was not able to fully answer the 24 questions outlined by Jones: "As part of our review we attempted to obtain answers to questions, which focused on why the Office of the Secretary of Defense hired the Rendon Group," among other things.

http://www.upi.com/SecurityTerrorism/view.php?StoryID=20070319-010958-9545r