WHouse concerned at reports of planted Iraq stories

:eyes:

Just like they were concerned as to who put up the MISSION ACCOMPLISHED banner and then we find out it was the WH who was responsible for it....This Cheney WH runs everything.....

The news coming back here has been shown to be reproduced stories as well. Like the two that were from two different areas from Iraq with the same exact quote of a "random Iraqi" in them.

nt

they are propagandizing Iraq.

These cretins are so transparent.

prison leak, not that fact they they exist.

Gimme a break. The guy running Lincoln Group, which coordinated and translated and paid for the stories, was co-chair of the Republican Convention. Who the fuck do they think they're kidding?

You can't even lie well.

They're just SO concerned.

They're the ones paying off the people who write these planted blobs of propaganda.

"Concerned" my arse.

Just like they're concerned about a male prostitute being discovered in the White House press pool...or about election fraud...or about the unprecedented Federal Deficit...or about the seniors who can't fill out their complicated Medicaid forms....or about the Katrina victims who will become homeless in a month...or about the outing of a covert CIA agent...or about the tens of thousands of innocent Iraqis who were killed during 'shock and awe...or about the oil companies who are robbing us blind... ...and on and on.

I'm sick and tired of these people apologizing and feigning concern for the massive wake of evil and destruction that they've created.

be concerned about. Like their upcoming Downsizing, happening in December of 2006.

Oh my God, can you just watch them squirm? Let the fireworks begin!:smoke:

the discovery of their actions. They do not set the tone for "concerned". That is for us to feel and investigate.

Maybe they can hire him to do some more of that investigative reporting....

They really think we are fucking idiots. :grr:

they'll get right to the root of the problem...

:rofl:

will believe that Bush** is "concerned".

We have been for some time.....

the bush whitehouse has no scruples or integrity.

they are in the same league as other disgusting dictators.

Their only concern is that people found out. If no one knew, it's not a concern.

Sounds like that "refresher ethics course" should be expanded to include the Pentagon as well...

why do they think they can continue to get away with this BS???

and thus repeat the lies.

its a maddening circle.

They don't have to pretend to know nothing about this; it is their brain child and they have been caught again!!!!

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/01/politics/01propaganda.html?hp&ex=1133413200&en=9f62482797121962&ei=5094&partner=homepage

WASHINGTON, Nov. 30 - Titled "The Sands Are Blowing Toward a Democratic Iraq," an article written this week for publication in the Iraqi press was scornful of outsiders' pessimism about the country's future.

"Western press and frequently those self-styled 'objective' observers of Iraq are often critics of how we, the people of Iraq, are proceeding down the path in determining what is best for our nation," the article began. Quoting the Prophet Muhammad, it pleaded for unity and nonviolence.

But far from being the heartfelt opinion of an Iraqi writer, as its language implied, the article was prepared by the United States military as part of a multimillion-dollar covert campaign to plant paid propaganda in the Iraqi news media and pay friendly Iraqi journalists monthly stipends, military contractors and officials said.

The article was one of several in a storyboard, the military's term for a list of articles, that was delivered Tuesday to the Lincoln Group, a Washington-based public relations firm paid by the Pentagon, documents from the Pentagon show. The contractor's job is to translate the articles into Arabic and submit them to Iraqi newspapers or advertising agencies without revealing the Pentagon's role. Documents show that the intended target of the article on a democratic Iraq was Azzaman, a leading independent newspaper, but it is not known whether it was published there or anywhere else.

Even as the State Department and the United States Agency for International Development pay contractors millions of dollars to help train journalists and promote a professional and independent Iraqi media, the Pentagon is paying millions more to the Lincoln Group for work that appears to violate fundamental principles of Western journalism.

...more...

and "who" is the "Lincoln Group"?

http://www.lincolngroup.com/

Vincent Breglio, PhD, Founder, Research/Strategy/Management, Inc.
Larisa Breton, Oryx Communications Principal
Bill Cowan, WVC3 Chairman and CEO
Devon Cross, President, Donors' Forum on Int'l Affairs
Douglas H. Dearth, Managing Partner, D&L Education Associates
Jerry Della Femina, Creative Director
Ronald H. Hinckley, PhD, President, Research/Strategy/Management, Inc.
Michael J. Jeary, President & COO, DFRJ
Colin Rees Mason, Broadcast Consultancy
Col (Ret.) Charles Dennison Lane, PhD
Michael Vlahos, PhD, National Security Analysis Department
Amy Zalman, PhD, Oryx Communications Principal
William Zartman, Professor Emeritus Johns Hopkins University, SAIS

just picking the top name there: Vincent Breglio -

http://www.awea.org/faq/surveys/survey2.html

excerpt:

The 100-page, 13-question survey was commissioned by the Sustainable Energy Budget Coalition, and conducted in early December 1995 by Research/Strategy/Management, Inc. of Lanham, Maryland, headed by Dr. Vincent Breglio, a noted Republican pollster who has worked for Presidents Reagan and Bush and the NBC/Wall Street Journal poll. The survey results have an overall margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percent.

http://www.govexec.com/story_page.cfm?articleid=32892

It's tough to follow the history of Lincoln Group, a contractor that won a $100 million contract with the Special Operations Command to assist with psychological operations. The common denominator to the firm's history is Christian Bailey, listed on its Web site as executive vice president, capital markets. After graduating from Oxford University in England in the 1990s, Bailey moved to the San Francisco area around 1998, and in 1999, founded Express Action, an e-commerce company he apparently later sold. In the Nov. 15, 2002, issue of HedgeWorld Daily News, Bailey was identified as the founder and chairman of a New York-based hedge fund called Lincoln Asset Management. On March 1, 2003, the Alternative Investment News reported that Lincoln Asset Management had an initial $100 million in commitments to underwrite a leveraged buyout fund to acquire defense and intelligence companies.

In 2003, the Lincoln Alliance Corp. (a subsidiary of Lincoln Asset Management) made its debut, presenting itself primarily as a purveyor of what it called "tailored intelligence services" for "government clients faced with critical intelligence challenges," and as an Iraq business development catalyst. Its Web site listed no officers, principals or partners, but described operations as focused on an ambitious mix of political campaign intelligence and commercial real estate. With one office in Baghdad and more projected, Lincoln would act as a clearinghouse for U.S. and foreign companies doing business in Iraq, providing "the information, research and contacts necessary to develop and grow businesses" in the post-Saddam era.

<snip>

In late 2003 or early 2004, however, the Lincoln Alliance Corp. became Iraqex, and in a Sept. 27, 2004, Agence France Press news story, was referred to as "a U.S. firm involved in a range of activities from manufacturing construction materials to providing logistics for U.S. forces." In October 2004, it apparently added communications to its repertoire, scoring a $6 million contract from the Multi-National Corps-Iraq (formerly known as Combined Joint Task Force-7, which had operational control of all troops in Iraq) to design and execute an "aggressive advertising and public relations campaign that will accurately inform the Iraqi people of the coalition's goals and gain their support," as the contract's August 2004 request for proposal put it.

<snip>

Bailey was a founder and active participant in Lead21, a fund-raising and networking operation for affluent young Republicans, some of whom have gone on to serve in the Bush administration. Click on the links to Lead21's site today and no mention of Bailey is to be found. But on a subscriber business and social networking site, there's an archived e-mail of Bailey discussing setting up a New York branch of Lead21, and his "personal network," which lists a half-dozen members of the organization's current board, including the chairman of the California Republican Party and the senior policy adviser to the Justice Department's chief information officer. "These are going to be the big supporters, the big donors to the Republican Party in five years' time," Bailey told The New York Times in an Aug. 31, 2004, video interview during a Lead21 party at the Republican convention in New York.

...more...

in Iraq...the torture, who the insurgents are, propaganda issued by their own men. Why are we paying these fools again? This is the Enron excuse..I am just an extremely, absurdly, disgustlingly, highly paid CEO...I know nothing about what is going on under my nose! :grr:

at this establishment!

Yeah, well, *I'm* concerned about my tax dollars going to psy-ops in this "democracy" that I'm supposedly paying out the ass to create!

This exposes yet another lie about why we're in Iraq - democracy my butt! It's all about the oil, and always has been.

No surprise, there.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1531976/posts

It was reported in the media beforehand and lo and behold, events have exactly followed the route laid out by those original, public reports.

'Proactive' and 'new products' means paying for the Bush regime changes to be published without it being clear it's the Americans saying it, I presume.

WHouse concerned at reports of planted Iraq stories
Thu Dec 1, 2005 12:18 PM ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The White House expressed concern on Thursday at reports that the U.S. military has secretly paid Iraqi newspapers to run dozens of pro-American articles written by a special military task force.

The Los Angeles Times reported on Wednesday the program began this year and the articles were written in English, translated into Arabic and then given to Baghdad newspapers to print in return for money.

"We're very concerned about the reports. We are seeking more information from the Pentagon," said White House spokesman Scott McClellan.
(snip/...)

http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=topNews&storyID=2005-12-01T171834Z_01_YUE155710_RTRUKOC_0_US-IRAQ-USA-NEWSPAPERS.xml&archived=False

translated: we will send them another check for planted stories when they tell us who snitched on us. Meanwhile, and until they cough up the name, Armstrong Williams will be enjoying a little extra in his envelope.

sent a suicide bomber to blow him up!

We're concerned.
We need to know the facts.
You'll have to ask them. They'll tell you to ask us.
No one in this administration remembers anything about this.
I can't speak about an ongoing investigation.
With the press corpse's full cooperation, we can drag this out until the next white girl is kidnapped and murdered.

:boring:

Not one person with a shred of common sense would believe these punks knew nothing about "Operation Iraqi Propaganda."

It's a two-pronged approach.

Left hand says "It's wrong and we're trying to find out why it happened."

Right hand says "we have to use every weapon at our disposal. The Geneva convention is moot. If your wife were raped, you'd want this tactic employed, wouldn't you?"

Apparently, many of them played hookie during the last class the White House had.

:dunce:

That's all these papers are, apparently: transparent propaganda on the level of Murdreck's NY Post. :puke: Hopefully the Iraqis will see right through it.

(They've gone from being "concerned" to now they "want answers," oh brother.)

White House wants answers on planted Iraq stories

Thu Dec 1, 2005 05:31 PM ET

By Will Dunham

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The White House and a senior Republican lawmaker expressed concern on Thursday about secret military payments to get Iraqi newspapers to print pro-American articles, but the military said it was important to spread the truth while insurgents were "lying to the Iraqi people."

(clip)

...Virginia Republican Sen. John Warner, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, asked Pentagon officials to brief the panel on the matter on Friday. Warner said he did not know whether the practice was taking place, but said, "I am concerned about any actions that may undermine the credibility of the United States as we help the Iraqi people stand up a democracy." "Further, a free and independent press is critical to the functioning of a democracy, and I am concerned about any actions which may erode the independence of the Iraqi media," Warner added in a statement.

Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch, spokesman for U.S. forces in Iraq, was asked during a briefing in Baghdad whether paying off Iraqi news organizations to run pro-American stories undermines the credibility of the U.S. military and of the new Iraqi media. Lynch replied that al Qaeda leaders believe "half the battle is the battlefield of the media," citing a letter, released by the United States in October, said to have been written by al Qaeda's second-in-command, Ayman al-Zawahri, to the extremist network's leader in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

"And what Zarqawi's doing continuously is lying to the Iraqi people, lying to the international community, conducting these kidnappings, these beheadings, these explosions so that he gets international coverage to look like he has more capability than he truly has," Lynch said. "We don't lie. We don't need to lie. We do empower our operational commanders with the ability to inform the Iraqi public, but everything we do is based on fact not based on fiction," Lynch said.

<http://go.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=10461073&src=rss/topNews>
(more and page 2 at link above)

If you beleive the regime bs spin on this.

How many times will they try to play hapless, trusting and fooled administrators, victims of its own CIA and Pentagon?

Gee, I hope they promise to investigate.

free press and free speech. why do they even bother saying they do?

Can you imagine the nerve of the military paying news outlets to write favorable stories?
Where the heck did they get that silly idea?
I bet this really offends the White House crowd considering how much they respect
fair and balanced reporting.

....is what the contract was. A hundred million dollars for five years of placing disinformation in Iraqi press. That's what Tweety said.

That was OUR hundred million bucks to pay for misinformation that will cost American lives and limbs, not to mention Iraqi lives and limbs.

Time to stop this crime now.

...when someone had to okay that contract. As Tweety said, someone had the authority to line item veto that expenditure.

Who let this contract?

And, don't you even THINK about stopping them!

lol!

I swear, these last five years have felt just like a horror movie. And we're always the dumb@ss babysitter that didn't lock the door.

I bet this Lynch chump wrote the fake letter. He sounds like one to play Goebbels games.

--Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch, spokesman for U.S. forces in Iraq, was asked during a briefing in Baghdad whether paying off Iraqi news organizations to run pro-American stories undermines the credibility of the U.S. military and of the new Iraqi media. Lynch replied that al Qaeda leaders believe "half the battle is the battlefield of the media," citing a letter, released by the United States in October, said to have been written by al Qaeda's second-in-command, Ayman al-Zawahri, to the extremist network's leader in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
--

Remember this fool? Bushco has a track record of paying for favorable press.

HEY MEDIA! GET SOME BALLS AND ACCUSE THEM! THEY DID IT!!!

how long it'll be before Karen Hughes' name starts coming up?

(from page 2)

...The (L.A.)Times also reported that the military had bought an Iraqi newspaper and taken control of a radio station to disseminate pro-American views.

A senior State Department official, who asked for anonymity, said the reports of planted stories undermined U.S. diplomats' efforts to foster democracy in Iraq....

(See, it the REPORTS of planted stories that are the problem, and...)


...The Pentagon closed its Office of Strategic Influence in 2002 after reports that it planned to plant false news stories with foreign media outlets....

(Sure glad they closed that "Office of Strategic Influence" and didn't do that.)


:banghead: :mad: :sarcasm:

so they can fire them.

Try calling 1-800-RUMSFELD and ask for Don.

Just stop doing this. Just stop. By now every fucking lie you have told this nation has been exposed. You think you can get away with another one? I suggest you start packing now.

:kick: