The War Before the War

[rodeodance]

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article9239.htm
Bush Administration Psychological Warfare Against the U.S.?

> The War Before the War

> An interview with Col. Sam Gardiner (ret.)
> by Kevin B. Zeese-June 23, 2005




.......Zeese: Regarding the management of information about Iraq, I'd like to focus on the buildup to the Iraq war initially. There have been growing indications from a series of memoranda and meeting minutes from Great Britain that U.S. intelligence was "fixed" to support the war. In your analysis of media management before the war, do you see any indication that the United States Congress and public were manipulated into supporting the invasion of Iraq by misinformation?

Gardiner: Kevin, I find it amazing that there is now a growing interest in the marketing of the war. There is absolutely no question that the White House and the Pentagon participated in an effort to market the military option. The truth did not make any difference to that campaign. To call it fixing is to miss the more profound point. It was a campaign to influence. It involved creating false stories; it involved exaggerating; it involved manipulating the numbers of stories that were released; it involved a major campaign to attack those who disagreed with the military option. It included all the techniques those who ran the marketing effort had learned in political campaigns.

Zeese: Can you give some examples of false or exaggerated stories put out by the Bush administration in the buildup to the war?

Gardiner: In the summer of 2003, we know from the Downing Street memo that the administration was talking about justifying a war by arguing that Iraq was the nexus of terrorism and WMD..............