Obama Administration Keeps RENDON GROUP For Afghanistan Propaganda Management

Orwellian_Ghost

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Mon Aug-24-09 10:58 AM
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Obama Administration Keeps RENDON GROUP For Afghanistan Propaganda Management

Journalists' recent work examined before embeds
By Charlie Reed, Stars and Stripes
Mideast edition, Monday, August 24, 2009

As more journalists seek permission to accompany U.S. forces engaged in escalating military operations in Afghanistan, many of them could be screened by a controversial Washington-based public relations firm contracted by the Pentagon to determine whether their past coverage has portrayed the U.S. military in a positive light.

U.S. public affairs officials in Afghanistan acknowledged to Stars and Stripes that any reporter seeking to embed with U.S. forces is subject to a background profile by The Rendon Group, which gained notoriety in the run-up to the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq for its work helping to create the Iraqi National Congress. That opposition group, reportedly funded by the CIA, furnished much of the false information about Iraq�s supposed weapons of mass destruction used by the Bush administration to justify the invasion.

...

The recent merger of U.S. and NATO public affairs outfits in Kabul has resulted in a one-stop shop for media information and embed requests. It also gives more public affairs officers access to the background reports and other services provided by The Rendon Group.

The backgrounders are part of a wide scope of work Rendon does for the Defense Department under its current $1.5 million �news analysis and media assessment� contract, according to military and company officials.

...

http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=64348&sendemail=1

The Rendon Group

Iraq

Rendon was also a major player in the CIA's effort to encourage the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. In May 1991, then-President George Bush, Sr. signed a presidential finding directing the CIA to create the conditions for Hussein's removal. The hope was that members of the Iraqi military would turn on Hussein and stage a military coup. The CIA did not have the mechanisms in place to make that happen, so they hired the Rendon Group to run a covert anti-Saddam propaganda campaign. Rendon's postwar work involved producing videos and radio skits ridiculing Saddam Hussein, a traveling photo exhibit of Iraqi atrocities, and radio scripts calling on Iraqi army officers to defect.

A February 1998 report by Peter Jennings cited records obtained by ABC News which showed that the Rendon Group spent more than $23 million dollars in the first year of its contract with the CIA. It worked closely with the Iraqi National Congress (INC), an opposition coalition of 19 Iraqi and Kurdish organizations whose main tasks were to "gather information, distribute propaganda and recruit dissidents." According to ABC, Rendon came up with the name for the Iraqi National Congress and channeled $12 million of covert CIA funding to it between 1992 and 1996. Writing in The New Yorker, Seymour Hersh says the Rendon Group was "paid close to a hundred million dollars by the CIA" for its work with the INC.

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Rendon_Group

John Rendon and the Democratic Party

John Rendon began his career as an election campaign consultant to Democratic Party politicians. According to Franklin Foer, "He masterminded Michael Dukakis's gubernatorial campaign in 1974; worked as executive director of the Democratic National Committee in the Jimmy Carter era; managed the 1980 Democratic convention in New York; and subsequently worked as chief scheduler for Carter's reelection campaign." James Bamford reports Rendon and his younger brother Rick went into consulting in 1981.<2> In the mid-1980s, he began working for clients in the Caribbean and other places outside the United States. His "career took an unlikely turn in Panama, where his work with political opponents of Manuel Noriega kept him in the country straight through the 1989 American invasion. As U.S. forces quickly invaded and quickly pulled out, he helped broker the transition of power." This in turn led to contacts with the CIA, and in 1990 the government-in-exile of Kuwait hired him to help drum up support for war in the Persian Gulf to oust Iraq's occupying army.

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Rendon_Group

John Rendon

John Rendon is CEO of Rendon Group (TRG) and a self-described "information warrior." He was formerly Executive Director and National Political Director for the Democratic Party of the United States, Director of Scheduling for President Jimmy Carter, and Analyst for American Political System for BBC World TV. In Weapons of Mass Deception and The Best War Ever Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber report on Rendon's work for the CIA naming and nurturing the Ahmed Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress, the source of much of the misinformation and propaganda about non-existent Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq, including front page New York Times articles by Judith Miller.

Stewart Brand and his Long Now Foundation brought John Rendon to San Francisco for a rare public address on July 14, 2006, promoting him and his CIA and Pentagon-funded work in the war on terror.

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=John_Rendon

Plus ca' change.