Propaganda Diary

Desert Rats
Preparations for the 1991 Gulf War included one of the most ambitious propaganda campaigns ever staged. An unprecedented coalition of PR companies including Hill & Knowlton and the Rendon Group, together with lobbyists and lawyers was assembled to persuade a sceptical American public to go to war.
Now a new movie, ‘Live from Baghdad’, rehashes some of the untruths involved in the Gulf War propaganda campaign. The TV film made by CNN subsidiary, HBO, gives a semi-fictionalised account of the experiences of two CNN journalists covering Operation Desert Storm. The story covers the case of Nayirah Al Sabah, retelling the same lie that was used to build support for Desert Storm.
Nayirah was the Kuwaiti girl who testified before Congress that Iraqi soldiers had pulled babies from incubators in Kuwait City Hospital and left them on the floor to die. This story was repeated endlessly by politicians and in the media and President Bush Senior cited the case to help build support for military action. It was only after the war that Nayirah was exposed as the daughter of the Kuwaiti ambassador to the U.S. She had never visited the hospital. She was coached on giving her testimony by Hill and Knowlton Vice President Lauri Fitz-Pegado and starred in a video news release the firm produced.. H&K, then the world’s largest PR company, may have billed the Kuwaiti government over $10m during the Gulf War.

Committee for the Liberation of Iraq
Like most fat cats under pressure, members of the Washington political establishment have turned to the techniques of public relations to solve their problems in communicating their message on Iraq.
The Committee for the Liberation of Iraq (CLI), a new Washington ‘think tank’ aims to do for this campaign what the infamous Citizens for a Free Kuwait did for the Gulf War of 1991. The Committee which intends to ‘promote regional peace, political freedom and international security by replacing the Saddam Hussein regime’ is headed by Randy Scheuneman, proprietor of PR and lobby shop, Orion Strategies. Previously, Scheuneman served as National Security Advisor to Senate Majority Leaders Trent Lott and Bob Dole. He was best known for drafting the 1998 Iraq Liberation Act which authorized $98m for the Iraqi National Congress, the loose coalition of Iraqi dissidents set up by the Rendon Group, another PR company, and now mistrusted even by the CIA.
Other CLI executives include Bruce P. Jackson, vice president of Corporate Strategic Development at Lockheed Martin, the well known humanitarian organization and coincidentally the world’s largest arms manufacturer. Before that he was Chair of the Republican Party Platform’s subcommittee for National Security and Foreign Policy. CLI Treasurer, Julie Finley, was a prominent Republican fund-raiser and worked with Jackson when he was president of the US Committee to Expand NATO. Jackson, Finley and Scheunemann already work together as officers of the Project on Transitional Democracies, another front group pushing to expand NATO.
The fourth member of CLI’s executive board is Gary Schmitt who also works with Jackson at the ambitiously named Project for a New American Century (PNAC). PNAC exists to ‘promote global American leadership’ and advocates the development of new and better military technology in order to do so, including ‘advanced forms of biological warfare that can ‘target’ a specific genotype. [this] may transform biological warfare from the realm of terror to a politically useful tool.’

PR companies claim diplomatic immunity
Meanwhile the diplomatic sparring between Saudi Arabia and the USA continues to grow. Most recently the House Committee on Government Reform has subpoenaed documents from Saudi’s PR and lobbying representatives in the USA as part of their investigation into the alleged kidnapping of children born of mixed Saudi/US marriages.

The Saudi government claims that documents held by lobbyists Patton Boggs and PR firms Qorvis Communications and the Gallagher Group are protected as diplomatic materials under the Vienna Convention. Legal opinion is unclear over whether the flacks are entitled to diplomatic protection and this case may yet set a precedent, drawing the PR and lobbying industries even further into the already tangled world of international relations.

More hot air in the Middle East
Perhaps prompted by Saudi Arabia’s recent fall from grace with the Bush administration, two more Arab states have hired PR assistance to help project a more positive image in America. The Kingdoms of Jordan and Morocco - two Arab states most friendly to the west - have hired Edelman PR Worldwide. The firm has been hired to conduct media relations, messaging and image building services, according to O’Dwyer’s PR Daily.
Meanwhile the Zionist Organisation of America hired New Jersey-based MWW Group, in May this year, to conduct PR on their behalf. The ZOA, which was founded in 1897, sent a delegation to lobby the US State Department not to put pressure on Israel in its ‘fight against terrorism’. They also urged the Bush administration to cut ties with Yasser Arafat and close PLO offices in the USA.

It’s Official - Pentagon is Honest, says Spokesperson
Speaking to French television reporters, Pentagon spokesperson, Torie Clarke kept a straight face while explaining that, ‘We try to put out news information in as straightforward and as credible a fashion as possible.’
She added: ‘We always tell the truth.’ Clarke, who is Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs, was previously General Manager of Hill and Knowlton’s Wasington DC branch, the office that arranged Nayirah Al Sabah’s dubious testimony.

Sources
O’Dwyers PR Daily - www.odwyerpr.com
Committee for the Liberation of Iraq - www.liberationiraq.org
Project for a New American Century - www.newamericancentury.org