.......While no stranger to garnering government contracts, the Lincoln Group is also no stranger to controversy. In November 2005, the Los Angeles Times revealed that the U.S. military was "secretly paying Iraqi newspapers to publish stories written by American troops in an effort to burnish the image of the U.S. mission in Iraq." The Times' Mark Mazzetti and Borzou Daragahi reported that the stories were authored by U.S. military "information operations' troops" and "translated into Arabic and covertly placed in Baghdad newspapers."
The Lincoln Group acted as an intermediary between the U.S. military and the media outlets; company staff and subcontractors wrote and translated stories, then paid local editors varying amounts to run them, pretending to be freelance reporters, for example, or advertising executives.
In their recently published book, "The Best War Ever: Lies, Damned Lies, and the Mess in Iraq" (Tarcher/Penguin, 2006), co-authors Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber document how Pentagon money was "thrown" at the Lincoln Group and other public relations outfits to promote the war in Iraq:
In September 2004, the U.S. military awarded a $5.4 million contract to Iraqex -- which soon after changed its name to The Lincoln Group -- a "newly formed" Washington, DC-based company "set up specifically to provide services in Iraq." A year later, the New York Times' Jeff Gerth would report that Iraqex's winning of the contract was "something of a mystery" given the fact that the "two men who ran the small business
had no background in public relations or the media."
According to Rampton and Stauber, "In its various incarnations, Iraqex/Lincoln dabbled in real estate, published a short-lived online business publication called the Iraq Business Journal, and tried its hand at exporting scrap metal, manufacturing construction materials, and providing logistics for U.S. forces before finally striking gold with the Pentagon PR contract."