Counterpunch: Bush PSYOPS On US Public

From June 22 Counterpunch:

An Interview with Col. Sam Gardiner
The Bush Administration's Psy-Ops on the US Public

By KEVIN ZEESE

Sam Gardiner has taught strategy and military operations at the National War College, Air War College and Naval War College. He was recently a visiting scholar at the Swedish Defence College. During Gulf II he was a regular on the NewsHour with Jim Lehrer as well as on BBC radio and television, and National Public Radio. He authored "The Enemy is Us" an article describing how the Bush Administration used disinformation and psychological warfare - weapons usually used against the 'enemy' - against the American public in order to support the war in Iraq. He has done an extensive analysis of the media coverage before the war, during the war and during the occupation as well as of the statements of Administration officials. His conclusions are startling and of great concern. He has put his findings in a report entitled: "Truth from These Podia."

[...]

Zeese: Can you give some examples of false or exaggerated stories put out by the Bush administration in the build-up to the war?

Gardiner: In the summer of 2003, we know from the Downing Street Memo that the Administration was talking about justifying a war by arguing that Iraq was the nexus of terrorism and WMD.

The terrorism argument was what propaganda literature would refer to as the big lie. The Administration’s objective was to make enough arguments connecting Iraq to terrorism and Bin Laden that the American people would believe Iraq was behind the 9/11 attacks. They used a technique called the excluded middle. Iraq supports terrorists. The attacks were by terrorists. Iraq must been behind the 9/11 attacks.

We the WMD story fairly well. We know the story of the uranium from Niger. We know about the aluminum tubes that were not for uranium enrichment. We know the biological labs Powell showed to the UN did not exist.

[...]

Zeese: You spend a lot of time in your article on the story regarding the rescue of Private Jessica Lynch. Why is that important?

Gardiner: Kevin, the Jessica Lynch story touched me personally, and it became representative of the whole effort to manipulate the truth.

From beginning to end, the Lynch story was a press event. It started with the description that the unit was "ambushed." The unit was not ambushed. It got lost and drove into Iraqi lines, and then it retraced its path back through Iraqi lines.

The Pentagon was in such a hurry to get out the story of an individual who had fought off the Iraqi they did so with incomplete information. All of the heroic stuff was really about a soldier in the unit who was killed, not about Lynch.

The Secretary of Defense allowed the story to stay around for days despite knowing the truth and despite the family insisting that the information was not about their daughter.

My father was wounded and captured by the Germans during WW II. He did some heroic things during the period of his capture. The manipulation of the Lynch story was an insult to his heroism.

[...]

Zeese: Was any of this illegal?

Gardiner: Some of it may have been illegal. A case was brought against the Secretary of Defense in a Chicago court by Judicial Watch for violating the law that limits defense money being used for propaganda inside the United States.

There was another illegal dimension. Most people don't know but the military is the only profession where it is illegal to lie. It is a violation of the Uniform Code of Military Justice for an officer to tell a lie. There were some officers who violated the Uniform Code of Military Justice as they marketed for the Administration.

[...]

Zeese: You conclude "Truth in these Podia" with the "Last Chart" and suggest that we need an investigation to determine the extent of information management and legislation to prevent the people of the United States from being victimized by war propaganda in the future. What type of investigation? What type of legislation?

Gardiner: We need a commission. This one would not be about intelligence. This would be focused on strategic communications. I have been able to uncover some of the manipulation that went on before and during the war, but I think I have only scratched the surface. Some is still classified or buried. For example, who within the US Government told the press that the French gave Saddam Hussein a passport so he could sneak out of Iraq? Who told the press Saddam Hussein was hiding in the Russian embassy?

The United States needs a robust public diplomacy effort, but I believe we cannot allow government officials to insert non-truth into media that will be seen by Americans. We can’t allow officials to damage democracy in the name of extending democracy.

Kevin Zeese is Director of Democracy Rising. You can see more interviews and columns written by Zeese on www.DemocracyRising.US.

Much more in the full story here.