Pentagon debate rages over 'information operations' in Iraq

[pinkpops]

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Amid a debate over the use of misinformation by the U.S. military, the Pentagon says it is investigating an October incident in which a Marine spokesman gave CNN misleading information about an attack on the Iraqi city of Falluja.

A senior Pentagon official told CNN that Gilbert's remarks were "technically true but misleading." It was an attempt to get CNN "to report something not true," the official said...

http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/12/02/pentagon.media/index.html

well duh, embedded imbeciles

[crasmane]

1. technically true but misleading?

The use of napalm is a war crime.
I don't think I've been misled at all.
And I'm waiting for the other shoes to drop, respecting the war crimes of this government all over the world.

[Hunting Deer]

8. Napalm?

We have not used napalm in a conflict since 1975 or so. The last old stocks of napalm were destroyed in 2001.

We do use MK 77 (firebombs) which burn but do not contain the gasoline and benzene that napalm had, and yes we have used them in Iraq to keep bridges clear but not destroyed as an explosive bomb would.

[NNN0LHI]

9. The currently used MK 77 has the exact same effect as the old MK 77 Napalm

They just use different ingredients to get by the ban, and break the actual spirit of the ban. As Rumsfeld would say, "Oh my goodness. I didn't know that." Perhaps you didn't know either? Anyway, you know now.

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/munitions/mk77.htm

MK 77 Mod 5

In March 2003 the Pentagon denied a report in The Age that napalm had been used in an attack by US Navy planes on an Iraqi position at Safwan Hill in southern Iraq. A navy official in Washington, Lieutenant-Commander Danny Hernandez, said: "We don't even have that in our arsenal." The report was filed by Age correspondent Lindsay Murdoch, who was attached to units of the First US Marine Division.

The Mk 77 Mod 5 firebombs are incendiary devices with a function indentical to earlier Mk 77 napalm weapons. Instead of the gasoline and benzene fuel, the Mk 77 Mod 5 firebomb uses kerosene-based jet fuel, which has a smaller concentration of benzene. Prior to Operation Iraqi Freedom, hundreds of partially loaded Mk77 Mod5 firebombs were stored on pre-positioned ammunition ships overseas. Those ships were unloaded in Kuwait during the weeks preceding the war.

There was a report on Al-Jazeera on December, 14, 2001 that the US was using napalm at Tora Bora in Afghanistan. In response, General Tommy Franks said "We're not using -- we're not using the old napalm in Tora Bora."

The US Department of Defense denied the use of napalm during Operation Iraqi Freedom. A rebuttal letter from the US Depeartment of Defense had been in fact been sent to the Australian Sydney Morning Herald newspaper which had claimed that napalm had been used in Iraq.

An article by the San Diego Union Tribune revealed however, on August 5, 2003, that incendiary weapons were in fact used against Iraqi troops in the course of Operation Iraqi Freedom, as Marines were fighting their way to Baghdad. The denial by the US DOD was issued on the technical basis that the incendiaries used consisted primarily of kerosene-based jet fuel (which has a smaller concentration of benzene), rather than the traditional mixture of gasoline and benzene used for napalm, and that these therefore did not qualify as napalm.

more

[PunkPop]

10. Oh, just fire bombs huh?

That makes me feel so much better. And we're just using them to "clear" bridges. How tidy of us. I guess all those Iraqis who showed up at hospitals in Fallujah with their skin burned off should have not been hanging around bridges so much.

Hey, I've got a terrible mess of leaves on my back porch. Do you know where I could get some of these nifty fire bombs? Sounds like they would do the trick.

[Hunting Deer]

2. Warning the enemy?

I guess the question here is:

Was the campaign actually starting when the officer said it was to the media then when we realized the media was warning the insurgents (which would cost American lives) this resulted in the campaign being delayed.

OR

Did the military use disinformation to scope out what the insurgents would do once the campaign began.

We are there, we have to win, Kerry said as much, lets get it done.

[maddezmom]

3. no way in hell was * going into Fallujah before the election

[PunkPop]

4. The ends justify the means right?

Unfortunately we've already lost. We've wreaked death and destruction on a country that never even posed a threat to us and in the process completely destroyed our own standing around the world. The name "USA" is mud to most of the world right now but stupid Americans don't even realize it because they're bombarded with state sponsored propaganda from CNN and Fox.

I don't care what Kerry said. Personally I think he was just playing to gung-ho warriors like you in an effort to win votes. Deep down I think he knew Iraq was a hopeless cause.

[Name removed]

6. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[NNN0LHI]

12. Kerry was wrong

We are there, we shouldn't be, we should leave as quickly as possible and hope we do not lose too many more soldiers as they board the transports to return home.

Don

[Just Me]

13. OR did the pentagon use disinformation to scope out Americans'

,...reaction to another round of military force in Fallujah,...

OR did the pentagon use disinformation to scope out what reporters were on the ground in Fallujah,...

AND is this the first time disinformation has been spread to the American media by the Pentagon (and, of course, we all know the pentagon has been engaged in this kind of propaganda campaign since well before the war even started).

[grumpy old fart]

16. Win???

What does "win" mean in the context of this illegal war? Do we "win" when a puppet regime is "voted" in? Can we then pull out, declare victory and let the inevitable civil war commence?

[Cocoa]

5. there should be a similar debate within CNN

of course it's disingenous for CNN to imply they didn't know they were being misled.

They should ask themselves, should we continue to act as the mouthpiece for the Pentagon?

Aaron Brown never answered my email about an absurd story he had on his program a couple of weeks ago. It was Jane Arraf introducing us to an Iraqi man who lost his entire family, wife and seven kids, when U.S. soldiers fired on their car at a checkpoint. But this man still supported the U.S. invasion, and was smiling throughout the whole piece. Arraf told the ridiculous lie straight, without a hint of the military being behind it, the guy being paid or whatever.

I'm going to ask Aaron to revisit this story in light of CNN's new interest in the military's using them for their propaganda purposes.

[ewagner]

7. I got a different impression

...from the broadcast last night, I got the impression that one of the Pentagon correspondents (Starr?) went out of her way to say how hard it was to cover a story in Iraq FROM WAHSINGTON implying that they tried to "second-source" the statement by the Marine Information Officer. To me, this was a direct admission that they knew they had been used/duped/compromised, but were making excuses for why they allowed it to happen. The other Pentagon correspondent (Jamie Mackintyre) was, as usual, completely clueless about the implications of CNN being used by the pentagon. I may be prejudiced in favor of Aaron Brown but I got the distinct impression that he was pissed. He understands the implications of the Pentagon's actions and he doesn't like it one little bit. He likes to think of himself as a "professional" in journalism and hates like hell being used by anybody. His twice-repeated comment "I your mother says she love you, check it out." leads me to believe that the Pentagon has squandered their goodwill with Aaron Brown and their future pronouncements will receive much more scrutiny than they have in the past.

If you want a contrast in the way the two stories were handled, I was flipping through the channels after Brown finished his segment and caught the guest host on MSNBC's Scarborough Country just as they were cutting to commercial break. Her lead-in for the segment to follow the commercial was (not exact, but close) "When we come back we'll talk about how CNN helped fool the insurgents"
What a contrast!!!

[Just Me]

11. The whole country should be having raging debates over this subject.

"Technically true but misleading" representations by our leadership for purposes of promoting an ideological agenda (that has never been fully presented to the American people) and done so in a psychologically manipulative way is something worse than propaganda,...it is an intentional psy-ops campaign being utilized against our own citizens.

It's a damned outrage!!!

[PunkPop]

14. Here, here!

The term "Orwellian" gets thrown around so loosely these days and with good reason. But this story is truly frightening.

[Just Me]

15. What they have been doing is very profound.

This is merely one small example.

I most noticed the psy-ops in our country back in October 2002. It totally blew me away what they were getting away with.

[zann725]

17. Not as Orwellian as huge billboards going up around the country..

with picture of Bush on it, with caption, "Our Leader!" as reported today on AAR's "Unfiltered" by Mike Pappatoneo.:crazy:

[Just Me]

18. At least, CNN is exploring this situation,...

,...although with scant fervor, as usual. Maybe, the ethics of journalism have all been crammed into a closet and saved merely as an outfit of convenience.