Pentagon exonerates itself in Iraq war TV spin investigation
The Department of Defense's long awaited response to a New York Times investigation of the Pentagon's controversial media outreach program is out. And its Inspector General's (IG) conclusion is, well, inconclusive. Did the agency's public information department "assemble a contingent of influential 'surrogates'"—aka, retired military officers—"who could be depended on to publicly tout" DoD handling of the war in Iraq on radio and TV?
That's the question the DoD's Inspector poses in the report. Its answer is that it found "insufficient evidence" to suggest that this happened, even though the audit confirms that a Pentagon biggie barred a retired general from briefings because he didn't like what the former officer said about the war.
Last spring a big chunk of Congress went ballistic about New York Times reporter David Barstow's April 20 feature article "Behind TV Analysts, Pentagon's Hidden Hand." The report rather strongly suggested that the DoD had recruited a slew of former military officers to become TV news show cheerleaders for the US war in Iraq. Publicly promoted as objective analysts, the Times revealed that some of these retirees consulted for military contractors. They had access to regular Pentagon briefings—according to the Times, as long as they hewed to then Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's line on key issues such as Guantanamo prison, weapons of mass destruction, and the overall success of the occupation.
