War Profiteers

David Barstow, writing in today's New York Times has a definitive story on how the Pentagon captured and manipulated the news media in the Iraq war. Donald Rumsfeld and Tori Clarke carried out an elaborate "Psyops" war against the American people by deploying a vast horde or so-called "military analysts" to television, the press, and radio. These people, mostly retired military engaged in lobbying for Defense contracts, received favored access and special perks as long as they spouted the official propaganda.

There were clear quid pro quos: those who deviated from the official line lost access.

Some e-mail messages between the Pentagon and the analysts reveal an implicit trade of privileged access for favorable coverage. Robert H. Scales Jr., a retired Army general and analyst for Fox News and National Public Radio whose consulting company advises several military firms on weapons and tactics used in Iraq, wanted the Pentagon to approve high-level briefings for him inside Iraq in 2006.

“Recall the stuff I did after my last visit,” he wrote. “I will do the same this time.”

Pentagon Keeps Tabs
As it happened, the analysts’ news media appearances were being closely monitored. The Pentagon paid a private contractor, Omnitec Solutions, hundreds of thousands of dollars to scour databases for any trace of the analysts, be it a segment on “The O’Reilly Factor” or an interview with The Daily Inter Lake in Montana, circulation 20,000.


The last mentioned paper caught my eye: I was a paper boy for them when I was in seventh and eighth grade.

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