[Peace-discuss] covert propoganda operations in allied countries

[patton paul]

Published on Monday, December 16, 2002 by the New York Times
Pentagon Debates Propaganda Push in Allied Nations
by Thom Shanker and Eric Schmitt


WASHINGTON  The Defense Department is considering issuing a secret
directive to the American military to conduct covert operations aimed at
influencing public opinion and policy makers in friendly and neutral
countries, senior Pentagon and administration officials say.

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld has not yet decided on the proposal,
which has ignited a fierce battle throughout the Bush administration over
whether the military should carry out secret propaganda missions in
friendly nations like Germany, where many of the Sept. 11 hijackers
congregated, or Pakistan, still considered a haven for Al Qaeda's
militants.


Some are troubled by suggestions that the military might pay journalists
to write stories favorable to American policies or hire outside
contractors without obvious ties to the Pentagon to organize rallies in
support of American policies.

Such a program, for example, could include efforts to discredit and
undermine the influence of mosques and religious schools that have become
breeding grounds for Islamic militancy and anti-Americanism across the
Middle East, Asia and Europe. It might even include setting up schools
with secret American financing to teach a moderate Islamic position laced
with sympathetic depictions of how the religion is practiced in America,
officials said.

Many administration officials agree that the government's broad strategy
to counter terrorism must include vigorous and creative propaganda to
change the negative view of America held in many countries.

The fight, one Pentagon official said, is over "the strategic
communications for our nation, the message we want to send for long-term
influence, and how we do it."

As a military officer put it: "We have the assets and the capabilities and
the training to go into friendly and neutral nations to influence public
opinion. We could do it and get away with it. That doesn't mean we
should."

It is not the first time that the debate over how the United States should
marshal its forces to win the hearts and minds of the world has raised
difficult and potentially embarrassing questions at the Pentagon. A
nonclandestine parallel effort at the State Department, which refers to
its role as public diplomacy, has not met with so much resistance.

In February, Mr. Rumsfeld had to disband the Pentagon's Office of
Strategic Influence, ending a short-lived plan to provide news items, and
possibly false ones, to foreign journalists to influence public sentiment
abroad. Senior Pentagon officials say Mr. Rumsfeld is deeply frustrated
that the United States government has no coherent plan for molding public
opinion worldwide in favor of America in its global campaign against
terrorism and militancy.

Many administration officials agree that there is a role for the military
in carrying out what it calls information operations against adversaries,
especially before and during war, as well as routine public relations work
in friendly nations like Colombia, the Philippines or Bosnia, whose
governments have welcomed American troops.

In hostile countries like Iraq, such missions are permitted under policy
and typically would include broadcasting from airborne radio stations or
dropping leaflets like those the military has printed to undermine morale
among Iraqi soldiers. In future wars, they might include technical attacks
to disable computer networks, both military and civilian.

But the idea of ordering the military to take psychological aim at allies
has divided the Pentagon  with civilians and uniformed officers on both
sides of the debate.

Some are troubled by suggestions that the military might pay journalists
to write stories favorable to American policies or hire outside
contractors without obvious ties to the Pentagon to organize rallies in
support of American policies.

The current battlefield for these issues involves amendments to a
classified Department of Defense directive, titled "3600.1: Information
Operations," which would enshrine an overarching Pentagon policy for years
to come.

Current policy holds that aggressive information tactics are "to affect
adversary decision makers"  not those of friendly or even neutral nations.
But proposed revisions to the directive, as quoted by senior officials,
would not make adversaries the only targets for carrying out military
information operations  abbreviated as "I.O." in the document, which is
written in the dense jargon typical of military doctrine.

"In peacetime, I.O. supports national objectives primarily by influencing
foreign perceptions and decision-making," the proposal states. "In crises
short of hostilities, I.O. can be used as a flexible deterrent option to
communicate national interest and demonstrate resolve. In conflict, I.O.
can be applied to achieve physical and psychological results in support of
military objectives."

Although the defense secretary is among those pushing to come up with a
bolder strategy for getting out the American message, he has not yet
decided whether the military should take on those responsibilities, the
officials said.

There is little dispute over such battlefield tactics as destroying an
enemy's radio and television stations. All is considered fair in that kind
of war.

But several senior military officers, some of whom have recently left
service, expressed dismay at the concept of assigning the military to wage
covert propaganda campaigns in friendly or neutral countries. "Running ops
against your allies doesn't work very well," Adm. Dennis C. Blair, a
retired commander of American forces in the Pacific, advised Pentagon
officials as they began re-examining the classified directive over the
summer. "I've seen it tried a few times, and it generally is not very
effective."

Those in favor of assigning the military an expanded role argue that no
other department is stepping up to the task of countering propaganda from
terrorists, who hold no taboo against deception.

They also contend that the Pentagon has the best technological tools for
the job, especially in the areas of satellite communications and computer
warfare, and that the American military has important interests to protect
in some countries, including those where ties with the government are
stronger than the affections of the population.

For example, as anti-American sentiment has risen this year in South
Korea, intensified recently by the deaths of two schoolgirls who were
crushed by an American armored vehicle, some Pentagon officials were
prompted to consider ways of influencing Korean public opinion outside of
traditional public affairs or community outreach programs, one military
official said. No detailed plan has yet emerged.

Those who oppose the military's taking on the job of managing perceptions
of America in allied states say it more naturally falls to diplomats and
civilians, or even uniformed public affairs specialists. They say that
secret operations, if deemed warranted by the president, should be carried
out by American intelligence agencies.

In addition, they say, the Pentagon's job of explaining itself through
public affairs officers could be tainted by any link to covert information
missions. "These allied nations would absolutely object to having the
American military attempt to secretly affect communications to their
populations," said one State Department official with a long career in
overseas public affairs.

Even so, this official conceded: "The State Department can't do it. We're
not arranged to do it, and we don't have the money. And U.S.I.A. is
broken." He was referring to the United States Information Agency, which
was absorbed into the State Department.

One effort to reshape the nation's ability to get its message out was a
proposal by Representative Henry J. Hyde, an Illinois Republican who is
chairman of the House International Relations Committee. Mr. Hyde is
pushing for $255 million to bolster the State Department's public
diplomacy effort and reorganize international broadcasting activities.

"If we are to be successful in our broader foreign policy goals," Mr. Hyde
said in a statement, "America's effort to engage the peoples of the world
must assume a more prominent place in the planning and execution of our
foreign policy."

Copyright The New York Times Company

###

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__________________________________________________________________
Dr. Paul Patton
Post-Doctoral Research Associate
Beckman Institute  Rm 3027  405 N. Mathews St.
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign  Urbana, Illinois 61801
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"The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious.  It is the
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