White House demands data on charges of planted news
WASHINGTON — The White House demanded Thursday that the Pentagon hand over information about a secret U. S. military operation to plant news stories in the Iraqi news media, and senators plan to meet behind closed doors with military commanders to learn about the information offensive under way in Iraq.
Press secretary Scott McClellan said the White House is ‘‘ very concerned’’ about reports that a defense contractor in Iraq, working with U. S. troops, is paying newspapers in Baghdad to run favorable stories written by U. S. soldiers.
Members of Congress have demanded details about the information offensive in Iraq, and Pentagon officials will brief members of the Senate Armed Services Committee in a closeddoor session today.
Pentagon officials said they are scrambling to get information from commanders in Baghdad about the arrangement between the U. S. military and a Washington- based firm called Lincoln Group that specializes in ‘‘ strategic communications’’ in combat zones.
Since early this year, the military’s ‘‘ information operations task force’’ in Baghdad has used Lincoln Group to plant stories in the Iraqi media that trumpet successes of U. S. and Iraqi troops against insurgents, rebuilding efforts and anti- insurgent sentiment among Iraqis, according to senior military officials and documents obtained by the Los Angeles Times.
Documents also revealed that the articles often run with Associated Press and Reuters photos that troops take off Web sites, a practice that could violate copyright rules.
Jack Stokes, an Associated Press official, said the company is investigating whether any U. S. official may have improperly used photos.
U. S. military officials in Baghdad offered no new details about the operation Thursday. When asked about it during a press briefing, the top U. S. military news officer in Iraq seemed to defend the practice, quoting a letter from Osama bin Laden’s top deputy, Ayman alZawahiri, to Jordanian- born terrorist Abu Musab al- Zarqawi.
‘‘ He says, ‘ Remember, half the battlefield is the battlefield of the media,’ ’’ said Army Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch. ‘‘ And what Zarqawi is doing continuously is lying to the Iraqi people, lying to the international community.’’
Lynch continued: ‘‘ 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.’’