Beware the military-journalism complex

You know all those retired generals and other military officers we've all seen on TV these past few years, explaining events in Iraq? Turns out that most of them were, or have been, more or less on the Pentagon's payroll. Few if any of these connections have been made public, but the New York Times sued to see 8,000 pages of records, and this is what they found. Excerpt:

Records and interviews show how the Bush administration has used its control over access and information in an effort to transform the analysts into a kind of media Trojan horse — an instrument intended to shape terrorism coverage from inside the major TV and radio networks.

Analysts have been wooed in hundreds of private briefings with senior military leaders, including officials with significant influence over contracting and budget matters, records show. They have been taken on tours of Iraq and given access to classified intelligence. They have been briefed by officials from the White House, State Department and Justice Department, including Mr. Cheney, Alberto R. Gonzales and Stephen J. Hadley.

In turn, members of this group have echoed administration talking points, sometimes even when they suspected the information was false or inflated. Some analysts acknowledge they suppressed doubts because they feared jeopardizing their access.

A few expressed regret for participating in what they regarded as an effort to dupe the American public with propaganda dressed as independent military analysis.

“It was them saying, ‘We need to stick our hands up your back and move your mouth for you,’ ” Robert S. Bevelacqua, a retired Green Beret and former Fox News analyst, said.

Kenneth Allard, a former NBC military analyst who has taught information warfare at the National Defense University, said the campaign amounted to a sophisticated information operation. “This was a coherent, active policy,” he said.

As conditions in Iraq deteriorated, Mr. Allard recalled, he saw a yawning gap between what analysts were told in private briefings and what subsequent inquiries and books later revealed.

“Night and day,” Mr. Allard said, “I felt we’d been hosed.”

More:

Again and again, records show, the administration has enlisted analysts as a rapid reaction force to rebut what it viewed as critical news coverage, some of it by the networks’ own Pentagon correspondents. For example, when news articles revealed that troops in Iraq were dying because of inadequate body armor, a senior Pentagon official wrote to his colleagues: “I think our analysts — properly armed — can push back in that arena.”

The documents released by the Pentagon do not show any quid pro quo between commentary and contracts. But some analysts said they had used the special access as a marketing and networking opportunity or as a window into future business possibilities.

More:

In the months after Sept. 11, as every network rushed to retain its own all-star squad of retired military officers, Ms. Clarke [Torie Clarke, who oversaw the Pentagon's media relations efforts] and her staff sensed a new opportunity. To Ms. Clarke’s team, the military analysts were the ultimate “key influential” — authoritative, most of them decorated war heroes, all reaching mass audiences.

The analysts, they noticed, often got more airtime than network reporters, and they were not merely explaining the capabilities of Apache helicopters. They were framing how viewers ought to interpret events. What is more, while the analysts were in the news media, they were not of the news media. They were military men, many of them ideologically in sync with the administration’s neoconservative brain trust, many of them important players in a military industry anticipating large budget increases to pay for an Iraq war.

Even analysts with no defense industry ties, and no fondness for the administration, were reluctant to be critical of military leaders, many of whom were friends. “It is very hard for me to criticize the United States Army,” said William L. Nash, a retired Army general and ABC analyst. “It is my life.”

And:

“We knew we had extraordinary access,” said Timur J. Eads, a retired Army lieutenant colonel and Fox analyst who is vice president of government relations for Blackbird Technologies, a fast-growing military contractor.

Like several other analysts, Mr. Eads said he had at times held his tongue on television for fear that “some four-star could call up and say, ‘Kill that contract.’ ” For example, he believed Pentagon officials misled the analysts about the progress of Iraq’s security forces. “I know a snow job when I see one,” he said. He did not share this on TV.

You've really got to read the whole thing. Many of these analysts were involved with defense contractors, who stood to make a lot of money from the prosecution and continuation of the war. They were working hand in glove with the Pentagon, and were told to conceal their connections (not that the media who hired them for their expertise were terribly inquisitive). One called this "psyops on steroids." Fox News was the biggest employer of these Pentagon stooges, but CNN and the major networks hired them too, and even The New York Times ran nine op-eds by them.

These retired generals and other officers were, by and large, whores for the Pentagon. line. There's no other way to see it. Read the quotes in the story, the stuff from the documents. Some were pleased to say whatever the Pentagon wanted them to say, whether they believed it or not. And get a load of these cynical SOBs:

A transcript of that session [between top retired military analysts and Defense Secretary Rumsfeld], never before disclosed, shows a shared determination to marginalize war critics and revive public support for the war.

“I’m an old intel guy,” said one analyst. (The transcript omits speakers’ names.) “And I can sum all of this up, unfortunately, with one word. That is Psyops. Now most people may hear that and they think, ‘Oh my God, they’re trying to brainwash.’ ”

“What are you, some kind of a nut?” Mr. Rumsfeld cut in, drawing laughter. “You don’t believe in the Constitution?”

If these retired officers hadn't carried Rumsfeld's water for so long, maybe we would have changed policy earlier. Who knows what would have happened? Might things be better today in Iraq? Might fewer of our soldiers have died? We'll never know. What we do know is that these retired officer damn well knew what they were doing. And the administration -- good Lord, what despicable people! It's hard to know what to say other than that it deserves contempt.

From now on, you see a military analyst on TV, assume he's lying. Why shouldn't you? The networks and news organizations should review all these contracts now, and abrogate any with a hint of compromise. And they should apologize to viewers, listeners are readers for not being more vigilant in protecting their role as conveyors of accurate information, not propaganda arms for the Pentagon and defense contractors.

As for the government and this administration ... it's hard to know what to think of it in light of this information. It's easy (and absolutely right) to be outraged, but what do we do with that outrage? What will the Democrats say? McCain? Clinton? Obama? This is Nixon-level stuff, and we will learn a lot about the men or the woman who would lead us by how he or she responds to this news.

More on this later. I've just finished the Times piece, and have to head out to church, but I can't stop thinking about what it means. But I will say this: this vital reporting was brought to you by a newspaper, not a blogger.