csua.org/u/e4t -> www.nytimes.com/2005/12/01/politics/01propaganda.html?hp&ex=1133413200&en=9f62482797121962&ei=5094&partner=homepage
Iraq," an article written this week for publication in the Iraqi pres s 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 dow n the path in determining what is best for our nation," the article bega n Quoting the Prophet Muhammad, it pleaded for unity and nonviolence.
Forum: The Transition in Iraq But far from being the heartfelt opinion of an Iraqi writer, as its langu age implied, the article was prepared by the United States military as p art of a multimillion-dollar covert campaign to plant paid propaganda in the Iraqi news media and pay friendly Iraqi journalists monthly stipend s, 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 Wa shington-based public relations firm paid by the Pentagon, documents fro m the Pentagon show. The contractor's job is to translate the articles i nto Arabic and submit them to Iraqi newspapers or advertising agencies w ithout revealing the Pentagon's role. Documents show that the intended t arget of the article on a democratic Iraq was Azzaman, a leading indepen dent newspaper, but it is not known whether it was published there or an ywhere else. Even as the State Department and the United States Agency for Internation al Development pay contractors millions of dollars to help train journal ists and promote a professional and independent Iraqi media, the Pentago n is paying millions more to the Lincoln Group for work that appears to violate fundamental principles of Western journalism. In addition to paying newspapers to print government propaganda, Lincoln has paid about a dozen Iraqi journalists each several hundred dollars a month, a person who had been told of the transactions said. Those journa lists were chosen because their past coverage had not been antagonistic to the United States, said the person, who is being granted anonymity be cause of fears for the safety of those involved. In addition, the milita ry storyboards have in some cases copied verbatim text from copyrighted publications and passed it on to be printed in the Iraqi press without a ttribution, documents and interviews indicated. In many cases, the material prepared by the military was given to adverti sing agencies for placement, and at least some of the material ran with an advertising label. But the American authorship and financing were not revealed. Military spokesmen in Washington and Baghdad said Wednesday that they had no information on the contract. Steven A Boylan, a military spokesman, said the Pentagon's c ontract with the Lincoln Group was an attempt to "try to get stories out to publications that normally don't have access to those kind of storie s" The military's top commanders, including Gen. Peter Pace, the chairm an of the joint chiefs of staff, did not know about the Lincoln Group co ntract until Wednesday, when it was first described by The Los Angeles T imes, said a senior military official who was not authorized to speak pu blicly. Pentagon officials said General Pace and other top officials were disturb ed by the reported details of the propaganda campaign and demanded expla nations from senior officers in Iraq, the official said. When asked about the article Wednesday night on the ABC News program "Nig htline," General Pace said, "I would be concerned about anything that wo uld be detrimental to the proper growth of democracy." "I think it's absolutely wrong for the government to do this," said Patrick Butler, vice president of the I nternational Center for Journalists in Washington, which conducts ethics training for journalists from countries without a history of independen t news media. Mr Butler, who spoke from a conference in Wisconsin with Arab journalist s, said the American government paid for many programs that taught forei gn journalists not to accept payments from interested parties to write a rticles and not to print government propaganda disguised as news. "You show the world you're not living by the principles you profess to be lieve in, and you lose all credibility," he said.
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