Thursday, December 2nd, 2004

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The U.S. military is reportedly distributing misinformation to the media as part of a campaign of psychological operations. The Los Angeles Times ( http://www.uruknet.info/?p=7729 ) uncovered how the military sent spokespersons to major news networks to deliberately lie about military operations in Iraq in an effort to deceive the Iraqi resistance. We speak with retired Air Force Colonel Sam Gardiner* .
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The U.S. military is reportedly distributing misinformation to the media as part of a campaign of psychological operations. This according to a report in the Los Angeles Times. The paper has uncovered incidents where the military has sent spokespersons to major news networks to deliberately lie about military operations in Iraq in an effort to deceive the Iraqi resistance.
In one case, on Oct. 14, a Marine spokesperson appeared on CNN from Fallujah and said "Troops crossed the line of departure." CNN was soon reporting the battle for Fallujah had begun. In fact it wouldn't begin for another three weeks.

A senior Pentagon official told CNN that Gilbert's remarks were "technically true but misleading." It was an attempt to get CNN "to report something not true," the official said. The military claimed it wanted to see how Iraqi fighters responded to the so-called news report.

Several top officials told the LA Times that they see a danger of blurring what are supposed to be well-defined lines between the stated mission of military public affairs and psychological and information operations. One senior defense official told the paper "The movement of information has gone from the public affairs world to the psychological operations world. What's at stake is the credibility of people in uniform."


* Col. Sam Gardiner, retired Air Force Colonel. He has taught strategy and military operations at the National War College, AirWar College and Naval War College.

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