Lincoln Gp award 20$m to support Military efforts (good news) in ME.

[rodeodance]

http://www.workingforchange.com/article.cfm?itemid=21727

Bill Berkowitz
WorkingForChange
12.07.06

Lincoln Group: Unethical weapon of mass deception
Controversial public relations outfit awarded yet another Pentagon contract: up to $20 million for monitoring the media

............

Perhaps the most notorious U.S. effort involved a U.S. public relations company that was contracted to pay for positive news stories -- written by U.S. military personnel -- to be placed in Iraqi publications.

In late-September, the Pentagon once again turned to the Lincoln Group, inking a two-year contract which "put together a unit of 12-18 communicators to support military PR efforts in Iraq and throughout the Middle East from media training to pitching stories and providing content for government-backed news sites," ODwyerspr.com reported.

According to ODwyerpr.com -- an information service produced by the highly respected industry publication O'Dwyers PR Daily -- the "contract with the Multi-National Force-Iraq is valued at more than $6 million per year, although contracting documents indicated that additional efforts could be "ordered" from the Pennsylvania Avenue firm for up to $20 million."

"Lincoln Group is proud to be trusted to assist the multi-national forces in Iraq with communicating news about their vital work," said Bill Dixon, a company representative.

[rodeodance]

1. and a bit of their history here:

.......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."