Iraq’s current press freedoms resemble ‘those of autocratic regimes in the region.’How Did George Bush’s “Iraqi Free Media” Plan Fail So Horribly?By Cliff Montgomery – May 31st, 2007In January 2003 Pentagon planners called for the Bush Administration to create a “Rapid Reaction Media Team” to serve as an intermediary between Hussein’s old state-controlled news outlets and the so-called “Iraqi Free Media” network to be created after America’s inevitable invasion, reveal a White Paper and PowerPoint slides recently obtained through the Freedom of Information Act and currently posted on the Web by the National Security Archive.The White Paper and PowerPoint briefing discuss Pentagon plans for a “Rapid Reaction Media Team” which was to serve as an essential counterpoint to Hussein’s state-controlled news monopoly “during [the] pre-hostilities phase of the Iraq mission.”Hand-picked U.S., British, and Iraqi media experts would cobble together “approved USG information” for an Iraqi public who apparently would be ready to believe whatever a non-Muslim, American-led group told them.Also serving as a “bridge” moving the news outlets to an “‘Iraqi Free Media’ network,” the rapid reaction team would invent narratives making Iraqis feel, Pentagon planners breathlessly beamed, like North Koreans who switched off state TV during the night and in the morning turned on “the rich fare of South Korean TV…as their very own.”The “rich fare” of the Defense Department team would sell a “new Iraq” full of hope, prosperity and democracy, which would instantly become a beacon of liberal virtue for the Middle East. All this would be part of an ensuing “strategic information campaign” to prepare a “likely 1-2 years…transition” to a democratic government.Pentagon planners seemed to really believe in a post-invasion Iraq where America, working with a friendly Baghdad government, could freely monopolize public information. They forgot to consider independent media outlets, as well as the freedom of the Internet and all other alternative information sources available in the modern world.Interestingly, the long-reviled U.S. media campaign in Iraq, held up as a study of gross incompetence, was an especially privatized campaign–one which became a very profitable enterprise for a few well-connected corporations.The Bush Administration’s Iraq media policy made rich(er) certain defense contractors with very close ties to the White House. These include the Rendon Group, which also sold its propaganda services to the U.S. in the lead-up to the first Iraq war, Scientific Applications International Corporation (SAIC)–also notorious for creating a job, at the Pentagon’s behest, for Shaha Ali Riza, Deputy Secretary Paul Wolfowitz’s girlfriend–and the Lincoln Group, which experienced an immediate rise in fortune thanks to the Pentagon contracts. Consistent failure to achieve the lofty goals of the 2003 White Paper has been the major accomplishment of all three.Two Defense Department offices prepared the White Paper in January 2003: Special Operations and Low-Intensity Conflict, and Near East and South Asian Affairs (Special Plans).The first handles psychological warfare; the second was created to covertly plan for the Iraq invasion–even as George Bush claimed to be trying all means of avoiding war.By mid-2002 it had become obvious to veteran Defense workers that the Bush Administration was “methodically preparing an invasion to oust” Saddam Hussein, according to Knight Ridder Newspapers. A planning unit–the now-infamous “Office of Special Plans”–would coordinate “the non-military and political aspects of any campaign, as opposed to drawing up actual invasion plans.”According to the Pentagon White Paper, “civil-military transition of the new Iraq to a broad representative government” would occur in “1-2 years,” and in only 12 months, the Bush Administration would establish a news system that would be “a model for free media in the Arab world.”To ensure that Bush’s “freedom” message would be monopolized, Iraq was to have a “Temporary Media Commissioner” who would regulate against “hate media”–in other words, any outlet spreading lies other than our own. The commissioner though would work in a leveled environment: the “Rapid Reaction Media Team” would “identify the media infrastructure that we need left intact, and work with CENTCOM targeteers to find alternative ways of disabling key [‘hate media’] sites.”U.S., Iraqi and “one or two” U.K. media experts were to craft information for Iraqis about American intentions and operations. The team would try to prevent Iraq’s “trifurcation” while telling Iraqis to hope for the future. “Hand-Picked” Iraqis would be “the face” of the Bush Administration campaign.The group was to “[t]ranslate USG policy and thematic guidance into information campaign (news and entertainment).” The “Entertainment and News Magazine programming” ranked “Hollywood” segments above hard news.And what of Iraq’s new press freedoms? The country now enjoys media policies which resemble “those of autocratic regimes in the region, and not those of an aspiring democracy,” according to the media watchdog International Press Institute.
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