[iwar] [fc:Information.'War.Room'.Deploys.Its.Own.Troops]

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Date: Wed, 19 Dec 2001 06:38:52 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [iwar] [fc:Information.'War.Room'.Deploys.Its.Own.Troops]
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USA Today
December 19, 2001
Pg. 14
Information 'War Room' Deploys Its Own Troops
By Judy Keen, USA Today
WASHINGTON - A little-noticed but critical component of the war on terrorism
operates beneath lamp-bearing cherubs in a building next door to the White
House. There, amid message boards that list upcoming events and clocks that
display the time in Washington, London, Afghanistan and Pakistan, the
Coalition Information Center has a mission nearly as important as winning
the war: controlling the story.
Operating from the historic Indian Treaty Room in the Eisenhower Executive
Office Building, 30 people huddle over computer screens as phones ring
constantly. Most staffers are borrowed from the White House and
administration agencies. Three are on loan from the British Embassy.
The public-relations operation stretches from downtown Washington to London,
Islamabad and Kabul, where people are stationed to help choreograph foreign
reporters' perspectives on the war. "We've learned that you either start the
news wave or you're swamped by it," says Jim Wilkinson, a White House
communications aide who runs the center.
"War room" staff members say this is their way of playing a role in the war.
"I'm here for as long as it takes," says Greg Jenkins, who arrived in
Islamabad on Nov. 13 with supplies for three months. Ten days ago, he set up
a one-man shop in Kabul. His home is a sleeping bag in an airport hangar.
"We're trying to beat down the misconceptions about our motives," Jenkins
says. "I think we have in large measure been successful in making the case
that this is not a battle of Christianity vs. Islam or West vs. East."
War room staffers in four countries have set up news conferences and photo
ops. When reports surfaced that many in the Arab world were not convinced of
Osama bin Laden's guilt after last week's videotape ran on TV, they culled
from news accounts 10 quotes from people of Arab descent who said the tape
did persuade them.
They organized last week's remembrance ceremonies in 110 countries marking
the three-month anniversary of the attacks. They wrote speeches for
President Bush, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Secretary of State
Colin Powell. They made sure that administration officials talked to Arab
media outlets to counter inaccuracies and wild rumors.
They even deal in the minutiae of war as well as the headlines. After
noticing that cable news channels were interrupting live broadcasts of White
House spokesman Ari Fleischer's daily news briefings to switch to briefings
at the Pentagon or State Department, they made sure the news conferences no
longer overlapped.
"The White House has been enormously successful domestically," says Robert
Lichter of the non-partisan Center for Media and Public Affairs. "They've
been very successful with our friends abroad. They've been pretty successful
with neutrals abroad. And, of course, they've been unsuccessful with our
enemies."
An operation born of necessity
The war room was born of information debacles. In the early days of the war
in Afghanistan, the Taliban and al-Qaeda claimed that U.S. troops had
massacred civilians and that U.S. helicopters and planes had been shot down.
When those allegations were made in Afghanistan or Pakistan, it was the
middle of the night in Washington, and no one was awake to refute them.
Karen Hughes, Bush's counselor and chief architect of his image, decided
that something had to be done.
She met with Alistair Campbell, spokesman for British Prime Minister Tony
Blair. She sent Tucker Eskew, a White House media official, to London and
dispatched Jenkins, normally a Commerce Department spokesman, to Islamabad
to organize daily briefings by former U.S. ambassador Kenton Keith.
Since then, Hughes says, "We have been able to seriously undermine any
credibility that the terrorists and Taliban may have had by cataloging their
many atrocities and cataloging their many lies."
Headquarters for the operation is on the fourth floor of the Eisenhower
Executive Office Building, next door to the White House. Long tables covered
with white plastic are crammed into the ornate room, which was a library
when the building housed the Navy Department in the late 1800s. The
sumptuous décor includes stars for navigation painted on the ceiling.
Seahorses and dolphins adorn the cast-iron railing along the second-floor
balcony. A burlap bag of the grain sent to Afghan refugees is stacked in a
prominent place as a reminder of U.S. humanitarian efforts.
The day USA TODAY visited, war room staffers were juggling a dozen issues.
By the time they held their morning meeting, Wilkinson had spoken to Jenkins
at 2 a.m. and scanned worldwide news reports on the war starting at 5:30
a.m. Part of that day's agenda:
* Review a State Department videotape of interviews with Muslims who lost
family members on Sept. 11 and find a way to ship it to Pakistan overnight.
* Organize the guest list for a celebration of Ramadan, the Muslim holy
month, to be hosted by Powell.
* Make sure a public-service announcement on religious tolerance taped by
Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham is ready for use by U.S. TV stations.
Abraham is the grandson of Lebanese immigrants.
* Finalize plans for Attorney General John Ashcroft's interviews with Arab
news media.
* Investigate whether the star and crescent moon, unofficial symbol of
Islam, can be displayed next to a menorah and a Christmas tree on the
Ellipse across from the White House.
The best evidence so far of the effort's impact has been its role in turning
the oppression of Afghan women into a major news story.
The plan began on Nov. 15, when White House aides told reporters that first
lady Laura Bush would deliver the president's weekly radio address that
weekend on the plight of Afghan women. For the next 10 days, the war room
stage-managed a "roll-out" of the issue that rivaled the advertising
campaign for a new car or perfume. The State Department issued a report
titled "The Taliban's War Against Women." Powell and national security
adviser Condoleezza Rice raised the topic on TV talk shows. Laura Bush met
with Afghan women at the White House. In London, Cherie Blair, wife of the
British prime minister, did the same.
Top administration officials kept the issue in the news. Rumsfeld opened a
Pentagon briefing by noting that the Taliban discriminated against women
"and even beat women for the crime of laughing in public." On the same day,
Powell called the conditions under which Afghan women lived "unimaginable."
The measure of success was in the news coverage: The White House's emphasis
on the issue prompted every TV network to do at least one story on Afghan
women; so did most major newspapers in the United States and Great Britain.
The cover of Time on Dec. 3 featured a photograph of an Afghan woman and the
headline "Lifting the Veil."
Eskew, who runs the London outpost, says remembering Sept. 11 keeps him
motivated. "We are here to stop big lies and to promote great truths," he
says. "We're changing hearts and minds, and we're sustaining hearts and
minds, by telling the real story." 

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