Plant News Stories in Iraqi Media

NYT reported The chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee summoned top Pentagon officials to a closed-door session on Capitol Hill on Friday to explain a reported secret military campaign in Iraq to plant paid propaganda in the Iraqi news media.

If it is a secret program, will the reporter who printed it be jailed until they reveal their source.

The White House also expressed deep concerns about the program.... Under the program, the Lincoln Group, a Washington-based public relations firm working in Iraq, was hired to translate articles written by American troops into Arabic and then, in many cases, give them to advertising agencies for placement in the Iraqi news media. At a time when the State Department is paying contractors millions of dollars to promote professional and independent media, the military campaign appeared to defy the basic tenets of Western journalism.

News Flash: Iraq is not a western country. Rather than worrying about the military providing stories to the Iraqi papers, how about doing a study on why the American press only provides negative reports to the American public, and does not tell them about the many good things that are happening in Iraq

Senator John W. Warner, a Virginia Republican who heads the Armed Services Committee, said he had directed Pentagon aides to describe and justify the program on Friday in a closed briefing for senators and staff aides.