In February 2002, the New York Times reported Bush administration plans for something called the Office of Strategic Influence. Its purpose was simple: misinformation. As an NYT editorial explained at the time:
Plans being developed by the Pentagon’s Orwellian new Office of Strategic Influence call for planting false stories in the foreign press and running other covert activities to manipulate public opinion. Such a program would undermine rather than reinforce the government’s broader efforts to build international support.
The secretive new office, headed by an Air Force general, Simon Worden, envisions using a mix of truthful news releases, phony stories and e-mails from disguised addresses to encourage the kind of news coverage abroad that the Pentagon considers advantageous, while using clandestine activities, including computer network attacks, to disrupt coverage it opposes. Such promiscuous blending of false and true can only undermine the credibility of all information coming out of the Pentagon and other parts of the government as well.
Aside from Maureen Dowd’s amusing silver lining — “At least the Bush administration is trying to disseminate information, even if it’s fictional. Usually it’s trying to suppress information, even if it’s consequential” — the reaction was overwhelmingly negative. The Washington Post reported that White House aides were “furious” and, on February 27, 2002, Rumsfeld disbanded the OSI, saying it “could not function effectively” and was being “closed down.”
Rumsfeld told NBC, “The Pentagon does not lie to the American people. It does not lie to foreign audiences.” As it turns out, Rumsfeld was wrong on both counts. The OSI closed it doors nearly three years ago, but the White House did not close the door on using misinformation.
On the evening of Oct. 14, a young Marine spokesman near Fallouja appeared on CNN and made a dramatic announcement.
“Troops crossed the line of departure,” 1st Lt. Lyle Gilbert declared, using a common military expression signaling the start of a major campaign. “It’s going to be a long night.” CNN, which had been alerted to expect a major news development, reported that the long-awaited offensive to retake the Iraqi city of Fallouja had begun.
In fact, the Fallouja offensive would not kick off for another three weeks. Gilbert’s carefully worded announcement was an elaborate psychological operation — or “psy-op” — intended to dupe insurgents in Fallouja and allow U.S. commanders to see how guerrillas would react if they believed U.S. troops were entering the city, according to several Pentagon officials.
In the hours after the initial report, CNN’s Pentagon reporters were able to determine that the Fallouja operation had not, in fact, begun.
“As the story developed, we quickly made it clear to our viewers exactly what was going on in and around Fallouja,” CNN spokesman Matthew Furman said.
Officials at the Pentagon and other U.S. national security agencies said the CNN incident was not an isolated feint — the type used throughout history by armies to deceive their enemies — but part of a broad effort underway within the Bush administration to use information to its advantage in the war on terrorism.
It seems that when the White House went apoplectic about Rumsfeld’s OSI in 2002, Bush’s team wasn’t upset about lying; it was upset about getting caught. Everything the OSI was supposed to do is being done anyway, with the Pentagon directing military officials to carefully lie to international audiences.
So, for an administration’s whose standards for truth have always been, shall we say, flexible, particularly with regards to Iraq, just remember that they’re now admitting that they lie on purpose when it suits their purposes.
Yeah, American credibility has always been one of those overrated, namby-pamby qualities anyway.
And before I forget, this is the icing on the cake:
According to several Pentagon officials, the strategic communications programs at the Defense Department are being coordinated by the office of the undersecretary of Defense for policy, Douglas J. Feith.
That would be this Douglas Feith. I think I need another vacation.