Press Freedom
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United States December 6, 2005
Honorable Donald H. Rumsfeld
Secretary of Defense
1000 Defense Pentagon
Washington, DC 20301
Fax: (703) 695-4299
Dear Secretary Rumsfeld:
This week’s disclosure that the Pentagon is paying to plant propaganda in Iraqi media is an outrage not only to legitimate journalists, but to the very idea of democracy that the United States aims to promote in the Middle East.
After being briefed by military officials, Senator John Warner, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, confirmed that the military had hired the Lincoln Group, a public relations firm, to translate and distribute articles with positive messages about the mission in Iraq . This is a blatant violation of ethics, intended to mislead the people of Iraq to believe that your propaganda was honest journalism. To make the scandal worse, Senator Warner also confirmed that Lincoln was paying monthly stipends to friendly Iraqi journalists.
There can be no excuse or justification for such behavior. After last January’s similar disclosure that the Department of Education was distributing propaganda in the form of television clips and making under-the-table payments totaling $240,000 to the columnist, Armstrong Williams, to promote its policies, President Bush himself condemned these practices and ordered them stopped. How could your people have continued the Lincoln Group arrangement after that? Was no one in the Defense Department reading the newspapers or watching television?
Thank you for your attention. We remind you that we have received no reply to our letter of October 29, protesting mistreatment by U.S. forces of journalists in Iraq . We hope you will address those issues as well in your response to this letter.
Very truly yours,
Larry Martz
Norman Schorr
Co-chairmen, Freedom of the Press Committee
cc:
President George W. Bush
Office of the President
The White House Reuters
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington , DC 20500
Fax: (202) 456-2461/ 2886
David A. Schlesinger
Global Managing Editor
Reuters
South Colonnade
Canary Wharf
London E14 5EP
England
United Kingdom
Fax: (011.44.20.7) 833-9731
General George Casey
Commander, Coalition Task Force 7
Baghdad
Iraq
Fax: (703) 270-0270
International Editor
CBS News
524 West 57 Street
New York, NY 10019
Ibrahim al-Jaafari
Prime Minister
Office of the Prime Minister
Baghdad
Republic of Iraq
News Editor
Al-Jazeera
editor@aljazeera.net
Fax: (011.974) 442-6864
Hassan Fatah Pasha
Editor
Iraq Today
hassan@iraq-today.net
Pierre Taillefer
Executive Editor
Agence France-Presse
pierre.taillefer@afp.com
Senator John Warner
Chairman, Senate Armed Services Committee
225 Russell Building
Washington, DC 20510
Fax: (202) 224-6295