Re: [iwar] [fc:A.'Damaged'.Information.Office.Is.Declared.Closed.By.Rumsfeld]

From: e.r. (fastflyer28@yahoo.com)
Date: 2002-02-28 16:42:43
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From: "e.r." <fastflyer28@yahoo.com>
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Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2002 16:42:43 -0800 (PST)
Subject: Re: [iwar] [fc:A.'Damaged'.Information.Office.Is.Declared.Closed.By.Rumsfeld]
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What Mr. Rumsfeld says and what DOD does may be 2 different things.  With the present  number of disperate threats in the security net world (Lots of small, sub-nationnals, or hackers with differring agendas at work)  it may have been too difficult to reign them all  under one umbrella.. Further, the cost of doing so and doing it in an acceptably proficient maner may have made the entire idea uuuunacetable, monetairly...   
 
 
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                
  Fred Cohen <fc@all.net> wrote: New York Times
February 27, 2002
A 'Damaged' Information Office Is Declared Closed By Rumsfeld
By Eric Schmitt and James Dao
WASHINGTON, Feb. 26 - Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld disbanded the
Pentagon's Office of Strategic Influence today, ending a short- lived plan
to provide news items, possibly even false ones, to unwitting foreign
journalists to influence public sentiment abroad.
Mr. Rumsfeld denied that the new office would have spread misinformation,
but he said commentaries and editorial cartoons about the office's proposed
activities made it impossible for it to do its job.
"The office has clearly been so damaged that it is pretty clear to me that
it could not function effectively," Mr. Rumsfeld told reporters. "So it is
being closed down."
Mr. Rumsfeld moved swiftly to quell a controversy that threatened to
undermine the entire Defense Department's public credibility. Asked today if
the Pentagon's integrity had been compromised, Mr. Rumsfeld said: "I doubt
it. I hope not. If it has, we'll rebuild it."
The office's demise came just a day after President Bush expressed alarm at
some of its proposed activities. On Monday, when asked whether he had told
Mr. Rumsfeld to close the office, Mr. Bush said: "I didn't even need to tell
him this. He knows how I feel about this."
The small but well-financed office was created shortly after the Sept. 11
terrorist attacks, in response to concerns in the administration that the
United States was losing public support overseas for its war on terrorism,
particularly in Islamic nations.
The office's director, Brig. Gen. Simon P. Worden, circulated classified
proposals that called for the military to not only drop leaflets and
broadcast messages into hostile countries, but to expand that mission into
allied nations in the Middle East, Asia and even Western Europe. The
proposals included aggressive campaigns that used the foreign news media and
Internet, plus covert operations, military officials said.
Though Mr. Rumsfeld said the office did not yet have a charter, classified
briefings circulating in the Pentagon said the office should find ways to
"coerce" foreign journalists and opinion makers and "punish" those who
convey the wrong message.
Since the office's proposed activities were made public last week, Mr.
Rumsfeld repeatedly said that the Pentagon had not spread lies and that it
would not do so in the future.
Mr. Rumsfeld supported the office's broad mandate to integrate the
Pentagon's information warfare machinery with other federal agencies. But
top aides said he never approved any of the specific proposals that raised
opposition.
"What it was to do was an open question, even today as it ends its very
short, prominent life," Mr. Rumsfeld said.
Until the disclosures, little was known about the office. Its
multimillion-dollar budget, from a $10 billion emergency supplement to the
Pentagon's budget authorized by Congress in October, has not been disclosed.
Congressional aides said the office had discussed financing perhaps as much
as $100 million in activities, many through other agencies, like the State
Department, that have limited budgets for information warfare.
Pentagon officials said Mr. Rumsfeld was upset that the internal debate over
the new office had become public. Today, even military officials who said
they were happy to see the office closed said they were afraid the damage
had already been done.
"It makes us all look bad," said one public affairs official. "Every day now
reporters ask me if I've lied to them."
Other senior officials said they had barely been aware of the new office and
had not realized the implications of its activities until the debate broke
into public view last week.
"If I had known about this earlier, I would have gone to him and recommended
he kill it," one adviser to Mr. Rumsfeld said. "You don't want things like
O.S.I. in the Pentagon. It elevates that kind of work to a level you don't
want."
A Pentagon spokesman said General Worden, an astrophysicist who has
specialized in space operations in his 27-year Air Force career, would be
reassigned, but it was not immediately clear when or where.
The Defense Department will continue trying to get its message across
overseas, Mr. Rumsfeld said.
The Pentagon had hired the Rendon Group, an international communications
firm, to help the new office. Pentagon officials said that the firm, headed
by John W. Rendon Jr., a former campaign aide to President Jimmy Carter,
would continue to be paid about $100,000 a month to do work for other
Pentagon offices.
The Joint Chiefs of Staff, for instance, has long had a task force
responsible for "developing, coordinating, deconflicting and monitoring the
delivery of timely, relevant and effective messages to targeted
international audiences," Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff, told the House Armed Services Committee on Feb. 6.
But Douglas J. Feith, undersecretary of defense for policy, decided after
Sept. 11 that the military office needed civilian oversight. So the Office
of Strategic Influence was born.
Today, Mr. Feith, fresh off a plane from Moscow, met with Mr. Rumsfeld to
close the office. "The office is done," Mr. Rumsfeld told reporters. "What
do you want, blood?" 

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Next message: Fred Cohen: "[iwar] [NewsBits] NewsBits - 02/27/02 (fwd)"
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