[THS] Pentagon Temporarily Halts Feeding Pundits

[Peter Webster]

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/042708A.shtml

Pentagon Halts Feeding of Information to Retired Officers While Issue is
Reviewed
    By Jeff Schogol
    Stars and Stripes

    Saturday 26 April 2008

    Arlington, Virginia - The Defense Department has temporarily stopped
feeding information to retired military officers pending a review of the issue,
said Robert Hastings, principal deputy assistant secretary of Defense for
public affairs.

    The New York Times first reported on Sunday that the Defense
Department was giving information to retired officers serving as pundits for
various media organizations in order to garner favorable media coverage.

    Some of these retired officers saw their access to key decision-makers as
possible business opportunities for the defense contractors they represent,
according to the newspaper. The story also alleged that the officers who did
not repeat the Bush administration's official line were denied further access
to information.

    Hastings said he is concerned about allegations that the Defense
Department's relationship with the retired military analysts was improper.

    "Following the allegations, the story that is printed in the New York
Times, I directed my staff to halt, to suspend the activities that may be
ongoing with retired military analysts to give me time to review the
situation," Hastings said in an interview with Stripes on Friday.

    Hastings said he did not discuss the matter with Defense Secretary
Robert Gates prior to making his decision. He could not say Friday how long
this review might take.

    "We'll take the time to do it right," he said.

    On Thursday, U.S. Rep. Ike Skelton, D-Mo., said in a speech that he was
angered by the allegations raised in the New York Times' story.

    "There is nothing inherently wrong with providing information to the
public and the press," Skelton said. "But there is a problem if the Pentagon
is providing special access to retired officers and then basically using them
as pawns to spout the administration's talking points of the day."

    Skelton, who is chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, said
he was also disturbed by the ties between the military officers and defense
firms.

    "It hurts me to my core to think that there are those from the ranks of
our retired officers who have decided to cash in and essentially prostitute
themselves on the basis of their previous positions within the Department of
Defense," he said.

    Hastings, who had not seen Skelton's remarks before Friday's interview,
said he is unaware of the Defense Department's past activities with retired
military analysts. He took over his current post in March.

    "I need a little time to kind of digest that and figure out what the path
forward is," he said.



    Go to Original

    Journalism's Loss Was Propaganda's Gain
    By Connie Schultz
    Creator's Syndicate

    Wednesday 23 April 2008

    When journalists fail to ask the right questions, inevitably the majority of
Americans will believe the wrong answers.

    It's that simple and that potentially devastating, this relationship between
journalists and the public. Especially in a democracy, where a free and
aggressive press is supposed to be a crucial check against the abuses of
power.

    We are the watchdogs, but too many of us journalists who are stateside
have been all bark and no bite in covering the war in Iraq. While our
colleagues in Iraq and Afghanistan risk their lives to cover the war, we
sometimes fail to ask the most rudimentary questions, such as, "What is
your personal stake in this war?" or "Do you have ties to the current
administration?"

    In a long and jaw-dropping piece in Sunday's New York Times, reporter
David Barstow documented just how badly television news has failed to ask
the right questions. He recounted how, in numerous interviews on ABC,
CBS, NBC, CNN and Fox, dozens of former military officers masqueraded as
independent observers, cheering on this never-ending war without
mentioning that they had been intensely courted and coached by the
Pentagon. They also didn't disclose their ties to military contractors profiting
from the very war policies they were asked to evaluate.

    Time and again, and not remotely coincidentally, these retired officers
repeated Pentagon talking points on TV. Some of them did this even when
they didn't agree with the administration. They were afraid of jeopardizing
their access to classified information - and to power.

    Newspapers aren't off the hook here. We regularly quoted from these
interviews, and many papers ran op-ed pieces by some of these men.

    Meanwhile, the American public was duped.

    There are many jarring moments in Barstow's exhaustive story that
illustrate not only the complicity of the ex-officers but also the cynicism of
an administration convinced of its exemption from accountability.

    "Again and again, records show, the administration has enlisted analysts
as a rapid reaction force to rebut what it viewed as critical news coverage,
some of it by the networks' own Pentagon correspondents," Barstow wrote.

    "For example, when news articles revealed that troops in Iraq were
dying because of inadequate body armor, a senior Pentagon official wrote
to his colleagues: 'I think our analysts - properly armed - can push back in
that arena.'"

    "Properly armed"? What a curious choice of words.

    Barstow's story, which came about after the Times sued the Defense
Department for documents, started with an example from the summer of
2005. Criticism was mounting over the U.S. detention center at
Guantanamo Bay. Amnesty International had just branded it "the gulag of
our times." Human rights experts from the United Nations had issued new
allegations of abuse. Many were calling for Guantanamo to be shut down.

    Journalists were banned from visiting Guantanamo. Instead, the
administration flew in a group of retired military officers, the first of six such
flights. Immediately after their tour, they appeared on various news shows
describing Guantanomo in glowing terms and blasting critics for circulating
lies.

    How effective were they?

    I learned how effective they were just recently, when I wrote a column
about a little book of poetry written by Guantanamo detainees, most of
whom have been imprisoned for years without charges.

    Reader response overwhelmingly parroted the Pentagon briefings. They
condemned the book and me for writing about it. Stop and listen to the
voices behind these messages:

    "These prisoners never had it so good," one woman wrote. "They have
clean clothes, clean bedding, three meals a day, prayer time, exercise time,
etc. etc. etc. That's suffering?"

    On his company e-mail, a man wrote, "During saner and better times in
this country, a piece of filth like you wouldn't dare write such trash."

    Another man responded specifically to accounts of detainees' suicides:
"They're committing suicide at Guantanamo Bay? Good. 'F' 'em. It saves the
USA a bullet."

    Are these the voices of an informed public?

    Connie Schultz is a Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist for The Plain Dealer
in Cleveland and the author of two books from Random House: "Life
Happens" and "
 and His Lovely Wife." To find out more about Connie
Schultz (cschultz at plaind.com) and read her past columns, please visit the
Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.

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