Washington – Military officials in Baghdad, Iraq, have described a Pentagon program that pays to plant stories in the Iraqi media, an effort the top U.S. military commander said was part of an effort to “get the truth out” there.
The U.S. officials in Iraq on Friday said articles had been offered and published in Iraqi newspapers “as a function of buying advertising and opinion/editorial space, as is customary in Iraq.” The idea has been criticized in the United States, and John Warner, the Republican chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, went to the Pentagon on Friday for an explanation.
President Bush’s spokesman said the White House was “very concerned.”
Lt. Col. Barry Johnson, a military spokesman in Iraq, said third parties – including the Washington-based Lincoln Group – were used to market the stories to reduce the risk to the publishers. He also said the program was critical to the war effort.
Leaving a Pentagon meeting with Defense Department officials in Washington, Warner, R-Va., said the program was a serious problem.
But Warner told The Associated Press: “Things like this happen. It’s a war. The disinformation that’s going on in that country is really affecting the effectiveness of what we’re achieving, and we have no recourse but to try and do some rebuttal information.”
Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, added: “We want to get the facts out. We want to get the truth out.”
Warner met with chief Pentagon spokesman Lawrence Di Rita and members of Pace’s staff.
