[Peace-discuss] New Year's agenda

[C. G. Estabrook]

[An indication of the sort of thing we're up against. --CGE]

  Wall Street Journal - December 28, 2005
  THE FIGHT FOR IRAQ
  Some Conservatives Return To Old Argument
  Outside Advocacy Group Aims
  To Rally Support by Backing
  Bush's Initial Claims on Iraq
  By YOCHI J. DREAZEN and JOHN D. MCKINNON
  Staff Reporters of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

WASHINGTON - The television commercials are
attention-grabbing: Newly 
found Iraqi documents show that Saddam Hussein possessed
weapons of 
mass destruction, including anthrax and mustard gas, and had 
"extensive ties" to al Qaeda. The discoveries are being
covered up by 
those "willing to undermine support for the war on terrorism to 
selfishly advance their shameless political ambitions."

The hard-hitting spots are part of a recent public-relations
barrage 
aimed at reversing a decline in public support for President
Bush's 
handling of Iraq. But these advertisements aren't paid for by the 
Republican National Committee or other established White House 
allies. Instead, they are sponsored by Move America Forward, a 
media-savvy outside advocacy group that has become one of the
loudest 
-- and most controversial -- voices in the Iraq debate.

While even Mr. Bush now publicly acknowledges the mistakes his 
administration made in judging the threat posed by Mr.
Hussein, the 
organization is taking to the airwaves to insist that the
White House 
was right all along.

Similar to Swift Boat Veterans for Truth -- the advocacy group
that 
helped derail John Kerry's presidential campaign -- Move America 
Forward has magnified its reach by making small television and
radio 
ad buys and then relying on cable- and local-television news
outlets 
to give the commercials heavy coverage. Move America Forward
has no 
discernible formal ties to the White House or the Republican
National 
Committee, and the group says it operates independently from the 
Republican Party establishment. Still, the organization
provides a 
clear benefit to the administration by spreading a pro-war
message 
that goes beyond what administration officials can say publicly.

The effect of the ads hasn't been measured. Amid a simultaneous 
flurry of speeches by the president and a ramped-up RNC effort
aimed 
at boosting the war, polls show that Mr. Bush's job-approval
ratings, 
specifically his handling of the Iraq situation, have risen this 
month from all-time lows.

"The White House has really done a poor job of getting the
message 
out, which is why we've had to step into the breach," says 
California-based Republican political strategist Sal Russo,
one of 
the group's three founders. "They should do a better job of 
coordinating with those willing to get out and tell the story. We 
shouldn't be the only ones out here fighting."

The White House didn't return several calls seeking comment. A 
Republican National Committee spokesman declined to comment.

Move America Forward has raised more than $1 million, mainly
in small 
donations, over the past two years. The group grew out of the 
successful 2003 effort to recall Democratic California Gov. Gray 
Davis. It was officially founded in 2004 by Mr. Russo, whose
company 
provides office space for the organization; Melanie Morgan, a 
conservative San Francisco radio host; and Howard Kaloogian, a 
Republican former state assemblyman seeking the congressional
seat of 
former Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham, who resigned recently after 
admitting to taking bribes from defense contractors.

One of their early efforts was a campaign supporting John
Bolton's 
contentious nomination as United Nations ambassador. Another
involved 
backing U.S. detention policies at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, by
selling 
"I [Heart] Gitmo" bumper stickers.

When the White House was caught flat-footed this summer by the 
emergence of Cindy Sheehan, the mother of a fallen soldier turned 
vocal administration critic, Move America Forward sent pro-war 
protesters to her camp in Texas and mounted a parallel bus
tour of 
war supporters that culminated in a large rally in Washington.
The 
counter-Sheehan campaign showed how the organization has
raised its 
profile by staging well-publicized rallies and public events that 
attract substantial media coverage, even if the number of 
participants is relatively low.

In July, with the administration facing a torrent of negative
media 
coverage of the war in Iraq, Move America Forward sent five 
conservative radio-talk-show hosts to U.S. military bases in
Baghdad 
for a week of upbeat broadcasts. Ms. Morgan says that, during her 
time in Iraq, she rode up and down the so-called highway of death 
leading from Baghdad's airport seven times to prove to her
listeners 
that it wasn't as dangerous as media reports suggested.

In addition to his Iraq political work in the U.S., Mr. Russo
has an 
open-ended political-advertising contract with the Kurdish
Regional 
Government in northern Iraq for whom he produces
advertisements that 
run in the U.S. seeking investment in Kurdistan. Some critics
accuse 
him of having a vested financial interest in prolonging the U.S. 
presence there.

Liberals question how the group has maintained its status as a 
tax-exempt nonprofit organization, which requires strict 
nonpartisanship, given the anti-Democratic tone of its
campaigns. The 
group's Web site, www.moveamericaforward.org, for example,
attacks 
the current chairman of the Democratic National Committee,
referring 
to "Howard Dean types who only see a future of failure for this 
country."

"When you have people participating in partisan activities with 
nonprofit dollars, that's really something the IRS needs to
look at," 
says Tom Matzzie, the Washington director of the liberal advocacy 
group MoveOn.org, another frequent target for Move America
Forward's 
rhetoric. "An organization with a shady tax status
participating in 
partisan activities and saying things that aren't true is a rogue 
element in American politics."

An Internal Revenue Service spokeswoman declined to address the 
issue, saying that it is agency policy not to "comment on
individual 
taxpayers or organizations." MoveOn is a "political action 
committee," meaning its donations aren't tax-deductible and
must be 
disclosed.

Move America Forward officials acknowledge that the group's 
leadership is conservative, but insist they are nonpartisan
and point 
out that the organization also has criticized Republicans.
They say 
that the organization has no connections to the Bush
administration 
or the Republican Party and has been unable to get meetings with 
White House personnel. And they say there is no conflict
between the 
organization's advocacy work and Mr. Russo's financial ties to
the 
Kurdish regional government in northern Iraq.

"If you consider being pro-America and pro-troop to be
Republican, 
then we'll proudly take that label," Ms. Morgan says. "But we've 
never been embraced by the White House or made part of a
secret-right 
wing conspiracy."

Indeed, Ms. Morgan says she is baffled that the White House no
longer 
makes the case that Mr. Hussein had WMDs. The White House
dropped the 
claims after a variety of investigators found no evidence to 
substantiate them. But Ms. Morgan says her ads are justified,
based 
on documents given to her in Iraq by an Iraqi general she
identified 
as Abdul Qader Jassim, and on information from U.S. officials 
involved in the hunt for weapons there. She believes Mr. Hussein 
possessed WMDs, and that those weapons remain in Iraq today. It 
couldn't be ascertained that Mr. Jassim is a general and he
couldn't 
be reached for comment.

The organization has kept up a steady drumbeat of pro-military
and 
pro-war commercials in recent weeks. Its newest radio ads,
timed to 
the holiday season, feature parents of service people killed
in Iraq 
or on their way back to the country. In one spot, a woman
described 
as military parent Deborah Johns observes that the "the
terrorists 
know they can not defeat our military -- they can only win by
beating 
down the morale of the American people."

Several Move America Forward officials hope to participate in the 
Iraq debate more actively than through mere advocacy. Mr.
Kaloogian 
has an early fund-raising lead in the crowded field of
Republicans 
hoping to succeed Mr. Cunningham, the former U.S.
representative who 
resigned after admitting taking bribes. And Move America Forward 
Executive Director Robert Dixon, furious over a recent troop 
withdrawal resolution passed by the Sacramento City Council, is 
weighing a run for a seat in the hopes of getting the declaration 
reversed.