The New York Times
HEARTS AND MINDS
Pentagon Weighs Use of Deception in a Broad Arena
By THOM SHANKER and ERIC SCHMITT
Such missions, if approved, could take the deceptive
techniques endorsed for use on the battlefield to confuse an adversary and
adopt them for covert propaganda campaigns aimed at neutral and even allied
nations.
Critics of the proposals say such deceptive missions could
shatter the Pentagon's credibility, leaving the American public and a world
audience skeptical of anything the Defense Department and military say - a
repeat of the credibility gap that roiled
The efforts under consideration risk blurring the
traditional lines between public affairs programs in the Pentagon and military
branches - whose charters call for giving truthful information to the media and
the public - and the world of combat information campaigns or psychological
operations.
The question is whether the Pentagon and military should
undertake an official program that uses disinformation to shape perceptions
abroad. But in a modern world wired by satellite television and the Internet,
any misleading information and falsehoods could easily be repeated by American
news outlets.
The military has faced these tough issues before. Nearly
three years ago, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld,
under intense criticism, closed the Pentagon's Office of Strategic Influence, a
short-lived operation to provide news items, possibly including false ones, to
foreign journalists in an effort to influence overseas opinion.
Now, critics say, some of the proposals of that discredited
office are quietly being resurrected elsewhere in the military and in the
Pentagon.
Pentagon and military officials directly involved in the
debate say that such a secret propaganda program, for example, could include
planting news stories in the foreign press or creating false documents and Web
sites translated into Arabic as an effort to discredit and undermine the
influence of mosques and religious schools that preach anti-American principles.
Some of those are in the Middle Eastern and South Asian
countries like
Before the invasion of
During the cold war, American intelligence agencies had
journalists on their payrolls or operatives posing as journalists, particularly
in
Suspicions about disinformation programs also arose in the
1980's when the White House was accused of using such a campaign to destabilize
Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi of
In the current debate, it is unclear how far along the other
programs are or to what extent they are being carried out because of their
largely classified nature.
Within the Pentagon, some of the military's most powerful
figures have expressed concerns at some of the steps taken that risk blurring
the traditional lines between public affairs and the world of combat
information operations.
These tensions were cast into stark relief this summer in
In a rare expression of senior-level questions about such
decisions, Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, issued
a memorandum warning the military's regional combat commanders about the risks
of mingling the military public affairs too closely with information
operations.
"While organizations may be inclined to create
physically integrated P.A./I.O. offices, such
organizational constructs have the potential to compromise the commander's
credibility with the media and the public," it said.
But General Myers's memorandum is not being followed,
according to officers in
Indeed, senior military officials in
Administration officials say they are increasingly troubled
that a nation that can so successfully market its cars and colas around the
world, even to foreigners hostile to American policies, is failing to sell its
democratic ideals, even as the insurgents they are battling are spreading
falsehoods over mass media outlets like the Arab news satellite channel Al Jazeera.
"In the battle of perception management, where the
enemy is clearly using the media to help manage perceptions of the general
public, our job is not perception management but to counter the enemy's
perception management," said the chief Pentagon spokesman, Lawrence Di Rita.
The battle lines in this debate have been drawn in a flurry
of classified studies, secret operational guidance statements and internal
requests from Mr. Rumsfeld. Some go to the concepts
of information warfare, and some complain about how the government's
communications are organized.
The fervent debate today is focused most directly on a
secret order signed by Mr. Rumsfeld late last year
and called "Information Operations Roadmap." The 74-page directive,
which remains classified but was described by officials who had read it,
accelerated "a plan to advance the goal of information operations as a
core military competency."
Noting the complexities and risks, Mr. Rumsfeld
ordered studies to clarify the appropriate relationship between Pentagon and
military public affairs - whose job is to educate and inform the public with
accurate and timely information - and the practitioners of secret psychological
operations and information campaigns to influence, deter or confuse
adversaries.
In response, one far-reaching study conducted at the request
of the strategic plans and policy branch of the military's Joint Staff recently
produced a proposal to create a "director of central information."
The director would have responsibility for budgeting and "authoritative
control of messages" - whether public or covert - across all the
government operations that deal with national security and foreign policy.
The study, conducted by the National Defense University, was
presented Oct. 20 to a panel of senior Pentagon officials and military
officers, including Douglas J. Feith, the under
secretary of defense for policy, whose organization set up the original Office
of Strategic Influence.
No senior officer today better represents the debate over a
changing world of military information than Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt,
an operational commander chosen to be the military's senior spokesman in
His role rankled many in the military's public affairs
community who contend that the job should have gone to someone trained in the
doctrine of Army communications and public affairs, rather than to an officer
who had spent his career in combat arms.
"This is tough business," said General Kimmitt, who now serves as deputy director of plans for the
American military command in the
The rub, General Kimmitt said, is
operating among those sometimes conflicting principles.
"There is a gray area," he said. "Tactical and
operational deception are proper and legal on the battlefield." But
"in a worldwide media environment," he asked, "how do you
prevent that deception from spilling out from the battlefield and inadvertently
deceiving the American people?"
Mr. Di Rita said the scope of the
issue had changed in recent years. "We have a unique challenge in this
department," he said, "because four-star military officers are the
face of the
He added, "Communication is becoming a capability that
combatant commanders have to factor in to the kinds of operations they are
doing."
Much of the Pentagon's work in this new area falls under a
relatively unknown field called Defense Support for Public Diplomacy. This new
phrase is used to describe the Pentagon's work in governmentwide
efforts to communicate with foreign audiences but that is separate from support
for generals in the field.
At the Pentagon, that effort is managed by Ryan Henry, Mr. Feith's principal deputy for policy.
"With the pace of technology and such, and with the
nature of the global war on terrorism, information has become much more a part
of strategic victory, and to a certain extent tactical victory, than it ever
was in the past," Mr. Henry said.
However, a senior military officer said that without clear
guidance from the Pentagon, the military's psychological operations,
information operations and public affairs programs are "coming together on
the battlefield like never before, and as such, the lines are blurred."
This has led to a situation where "proponents of these elements jockey for
position to lead the overall communication effort," the officer said.
Debate also continues over proposed amendments to a
classified Defense Department directive, titled "3600.1: Information
Operations," which would lay down Pentagon policy in coming years.
Previous versions of the directive allow aggressive information campaigns to
affect enemy leaders, but not those of allies or even neutral states. The
current debate is over proposed revisions that would widen the target audience
for such missions.
Mr. Di Rita, the Pentagon
spokesman, says that even though the government is wrestling with these issues,
the standard is still to tell to the truth.
"Our job is to put out information to the public that
is accurate," he said, "and to put it out as quickly as we can."