THE RISE AND FALL OF THE OFFICE OF STRATEGIC INFLUENCE

Coming on the heels of the September 11 terrorist attacks, the Defense Department created the Office of Strategic Influence (OSI). One of the office’s proposals called for planting news items with foreign media organizations through outside concerns that might not have obvious ties to the Pentagon. The Defense Department provided news items, possibly even false ones, to foreign media organizations as part of an effort to influence public sentiment and policy-makers in friendly and unfriendly nations. Soon after the OSI was formed, it sought to broaden its mission into allied nations in the Middle East, Asia and Western Europe. (New York Times, February 19 and 21, 2002)

The CIA and the Pentagon had long engaged in information warfare against hostile nations. In the mid-1970s, it was revealed that CIA programs to plant false information in the foreign press had resulted in articles published by U.S. news organizations. And before the September 11 terrorist attacks, the CIA dropped leaflets and broadcast messages into Afghanistan when it was under Taliban rule.

The OSI’s multimillion dollar budget, drawn from a $10 billion emergency supplement to the Pentagon budget authorized by Congress in October, was never disclosed. Headed by Air Force Brigadier General Simon Worden, the OSI began circulating classified proposals calling for aggressive campaigns that use not only the foreign media and the Internet, but also covert operations. Worden envisioned a broad mission ranging from campaigns that would use disinformation and other covert activities to those public affairs that would rely on truthful news releases.

To help the OSI, the Pentagon hired the Rendon Group, a Washington-based international consulting firm run by John W. Rendon Jr., a former campaign aide to President Jimmy Carter. The firm, which was paid about $100,000 a month, had done extensive work for the CIA, the Kuwaiti royal family, and the Iraqi National Congress, the opposition group that sought to oust President Saddam Hussein. Officials at the Rendon Group said terms of their contract forbade them to talk about their Pentagon work. But the firm was well known for running propaganda campaigns in Arab countries, including one denouncing atrocities by Iraq during its 1990 invasion of Kuwait. (New York Times, February 19 and 21, 2002)

OSI operations instantly created a schism within the Pentagon. Military public affairs officials expressed concern to top officials that the new office, if it continued on its proposed course, would precipitate jurisdiction problems between intelligence operations and public relations operations. There was also concern in the military that the field of “information operations” was one of the few areas in which the armed forces have had major problems during the Afghan war. (Washington Post, February 20, 2002)

Air Force General Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, singled out that area for unusual public criticism. He said in November, “One area in particular I think we’ve been slow to get going has been our information operations campaign. Despite our best efforts, we took too much time to put together the team, if you will.” The result, he said, was that, “occasionally, we missed the opportunity to send the right message.” (Washington Post, February 20, 2002)

By the end of February, the OSI was dead. Rumsfeld charged that inaccurate news reports had damaged the new propaganda coordination office beyond repair. The Defense secretary still defended the office even as he buried it. He said that even though much of the media commentary was “off the mark, the office has clearly been so damaged that it’s … pretty clear to me that it could not function effectively, so it’s being closed down.” (Washington Post, February 27, 2002)

Why was the Office of Strategic Information “dead-on-arrival”? Had the issue of disinformation leaked out? Was that the reason for the quick demise of the newly created office?