PR War Room

29 August 2007 |permalink | email article

The Pentagon, anticipating next month’s visit by Gen. David Petraeus to Washington to describe alleged military progress in Iraq, is launching a massive public relations offensive.

In a memo circulated last week, The Associated Press reported that Dorrance Smith, assistant secretary for public affairs, seeks personnel for what he described as a high-priority effort to distribute Defense Department information on Iraq.

The Pentagon dismissed suggestions that the communications desk would be propaganda tool, insisting the war room is being established to gather and distribute information in a more efficient and timely manner.

I read a stunning Washington Post story this week about Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.), an outspoken liberal making her first visit to Iraq this month. Resolving to keep her opinions to herself she decided “I would listen and learn” along with other lawmakers in briefings with Petraeus and other military leaders.

Over lunch she carefully jotted down Petraeus’s words in a small white notebook: “We will be in Iraq in some way for 10 years.” She added her own translation: “Keep the trains running for a few months, then stretch it out. Just enough progress to justify more time.”

Schakowsky added: “I felt that was a stretch and really a PR strategy – just like the PR strategy that initially led up to the war in the first place.

Petraeus, she said, “acknowledged that if the policymakers decide that we need to withdraw, that, you know, that’s what he would have to do. But he felt that in order to win, we’d have to be there for nine or ten years.”

She acknowledged that the military’s presentation may have been effective. “I you took the briefings at their face value, without context, without bringing anything to it – clearly they were trying to present that positive spin.”

She didn’t respond to Petraeus; she let the comment drift by. “I was not arguing,” she said. ”I wanted to see what his take was.”

If this account foreshadows the Petraeus White House report, look for a massive political outcry to approach anti-Vietnam war proportions.
   

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