Report: U.S. Planting Propaganda in Iraqi Press

[Jon8503]

By E&P Staff - Published: November 30, 2005 10:50 AM ET

NEW YORK In a lengthy article today, Los Angeles Times reporters Mark Mazzetti and Borzou Daragahi reveal that that the U.S. military is secretly paying Iraqi newspapers to publish stories written by American troops to improve the image of the U.S. occupation. Many of the articles are presented in the Iraqi press "as unbiased news accounts written and reported by independent journalists," the article reports.

Dozens have been published since the effort began earlier this year.

A senior Pentagon official who opposes the practice of planting stories in the Iraqi media said: "Here we are trying to create the principles of democracy in Iraq. Every speech we give in that country is about democracy. And we're breaking all the first principles of democracy when we're doing it."

The articles are composed by U.S. military "information operations" troops, translated into Arabic and placed in Baghdad newspapers with the help of a U.S.-based defense contractor, according to U.S. military officials and documents obtained by the Times.

Rest of story @ link:

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1001611769

[Benhurst]

1. The Evil Empire is undoubtedly planting stories all over the world. NT