Return-Path: <sentto-279987-4531-1014904144-fc=all.net@returns.groups.yahoo.com> Delivered-To: fc@all.net Received: from 204.181.12.215 [204.181.12.215] by localhost with POP3 (fetchmail-5.7.4) for fc@localhost (single-drop); Thu, 28 Feb 2002 05:51:10 -0800 (PST) Received: (qmail 13358 invoked by uid 510); 28 Feb 2002 13:48:58 -0000 Received: from n6.groups.yahoo.com (216.115.96.56) by all.net with SMTP; 28 Feb 2002 13:48:58 -0000 X-eGroups-Return: sentto-279987-4531-1014904144-fc=all.net@returns.groups.yahoo.com Received: from [216.115.97.163] by n6.groups.yahoo.com with NNFMP; 28 Feb 2002 13:49:05 -0000 X-Sender: fc@red.all.net X-Apparently-To: iwar@onelist.com Received: (EGP: unknown); 28 Feb 2002 13:49:03 -0000 Received: (qmail 4517 invoked from network); 28 Feb 2002 13:49:01 -0000 Received: from unknown (216.115.97.171) by m9.grp.snv.yahoo.com with QMQP; 28 Feb 2002 13:49:01 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO red.all.net) (12.232.72.152) by mta3.grp.snv.yahoo.com with SMTP; 28 Feb 2002 13:49:01 -0000 Received: (from fc@localhost) by red.all.net (8.11.2/8.11.2) id g1SDnIN02231 for iwar@onelist.com; Thu, 28 Feb 2002 05:49:18 -0800 Message-Id: <200202281349.g1SDnIN02231@red.all.net> To: iwar@onelist.com (Information Warfare Mailing List) Organization: I'm not allowed to say X-Mailer: don't even ask X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.5 PL3] From: Fred Cohen <fc@all.net> X-Yahoo-Profile: fcallnet Mailing-List: list iwar@yahoogroups.com; contact iwar-owner@yahoogroups.com Delivered-To: mailing list iwar@yahoogroups.com Precedence: bulk List-Unsubscribe: <mailto:iwar-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com> Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2002 05:49:18 -0800 (PST) Subject: [iwar] [fc:Pentagon.May.Scrap.'Strategic.Influence'.Office.Proposal.to.Spread.Propaganda.Caused.Uproar] Reply-To: iwar@yahoogroups.com Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Pentagon May Scrap 'Strategic Influence' Office Proposal to Spread Propaganda Caused Uproar By SUSANNE M. SCHAFER .c The Associated Press WASHINGTON (Feb. 25) - While his defense secretary considered shutting down a new Pentagon office that reportedly has proposed spreading false information, President Bush pledged Monday: ``We'll tell the American people the truth.'' Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld has asked a top Pentagon official in charge of the new Office of Strategic Influence ``to take a very, very hard look at it'' and determine ``should it even exist,'' spokeswoman Victoria Clarke told reporters. Bush, questioned at the White House, said: ``I told Secretary Rumsfeld ... that we'll tell the American people the truth.'' Rumsfeld ``was just as amazed as I was about reading some allegation that somehow our government would never tell the American people the truth,'' Bush said, adding that he's confident the defense secretary will ``handle this in the right way.'' At the Pentagon, Clarke said she is ``always very, very concerned about our credibility.'' Last week, reports surfaced that the office had proposed giving false information to foreign journalists as a means of furthering the U.S. war against terrorism. The New York Times reported that the office, headed by Air Force Brig. Gen. Simon P. Worden, had begun circulating classified proposals calling for using the Internet and clandestine operations to spread such disinformation. On Sunday, Rumsfeld noted the office is only in its early stages and said he had never seen the charter setting it up. Appearing on NBC-TV's ``Meet the Press,'' Rumsfeld said there is a need ``to counter the lies'' of the Taliban in the war in Afghanistan. The defense secretary said the Taliban had been telling the Afghan people America was making war on Muslims and that the humanitarian rations being dropped by U.S. armed forces were poisonous. ``The Pentagon needs to do that type of thing and that is all that the Pentagon does. The Pentagon does not lie to the American people. It does not lie to foreign audiences. It does not engage in those types of things,'' Rumsfeld said. Clarke, asked about the secretary's comments, said reports about the office had raised ``lots of questions and lots of concerns.'' Rumsfeld has asked Douglas Feith, the undersecretary of defense for policy, who oversees the new office, to determine its future. Rumsfeld said last week that the Pentagon might engage in strategic or tactical deception, as it has in the past. For example, if U.S. troops were about to launch an attack from the west, they might ``do things'' that would make the enemy believe an attack was instead coming from the north, Rumsfeld said. ``That would be characterized as tactical deception,'' the secretary said. Feith, in an interview with reporters last week, said the main reason for creating the new office last fall was to centralize oversight of what the mi litary calls ``information operations,'' such as spreading messages on a battlefield by leaflet or airborne broadcasts. ``We have an interest in the enemy not knowing, not being comfortable about what we are going to do'' on the battlefield, Feith said in a breakfast interview with a group of reporters. He stressed that this would not include lying to the public. ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ---------------------~--> Tiny Wireless Camera under $80! Order Now! FREE VCR Commander! Click Here - Only 1 Day Left! http://us.click.yahoo.com/nuyOHD/7.PDAA/yigFAA/kgFolB/TM ---------------------------------------------------------------------~-> ------------------ http://all.net/ Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
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