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Questions about the war in Iraq continue to divide America. What’s going on, exactly? Is there good news that we aren't getting? Why can’t we make even an educated guess about the effectiveness of the “surge?”

The bad news continues to come unabated -- last week’s headlines blared about May being the deadliest month in years – and the fog of war endures, despite our efforts to make sense of what's happening on the ground. At last night’s Republican presidential debate, Rudy Giuliani made this point about the surge:

And I'd just like to ask, I'd just like to ask one question I didn't get to ask before, when you said, if General Petraeus comes back in September and reports that things aren't going well, what are we going to do?

But suppose General Petraeus comes back in September and reports that things are going pretty well. Are we going to report that with the same amount of attention that we would report the negative news?

Giuliani’s media criticism occurred on the same day that the Associated Press held a panel discussion about Iraq in which AP Iraq Bureau Chief Steven R. Hurst said this:

It’s hard to give a very positive report of what’s going on in Baghdad right now for a number of reasons. I think, first and foremost, the United States puts a great deal of hope that the so-called troop surge would start having an effect. Immediately after it was announced, there was a significant drop in violence, in February and March, but that lasted a very short time. Now, we’ve seen a number of people being killed there, which is sadly the Baghdad story right now.

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The U.S. military has a channel on YouTube.

"Multi-National Force - Iraq established this YouTube channel to give viewers around the world a 'boots on the ground' perspective of Operation Iraqi Freedom from those who are fighting it," according to the site. The channel offers clips of military combat – 12 so far – shot by Armed Forces network videographers, among them "Battle on Haifa Street" and "Night Attack on Al Qaeda."

"On The Media," which alerted us to the channel, has posted an interview with Major Armando Hernandez, the media outreach embed chief with the multinational forces in Iraq. An interesting exchange comes towards the end: Hernandez says "the military is illustrating an unfiltered view of coalition operations here in Iraq," which prompts interviewer Bob Garfield to respond with this: "Well, not an unfiltered image. I mean, it's an explicitly filtered image, but it's certainly the Pentagon's side of the story in view of the war."

I think it's safe to say that the Pentagon doesn't always like the press corps' presentation of the war. The YouTube channel is an effective way to tell war stories without depending on the media, and the Pentagon is smart to use the Internet to showcase the "heroism of our American troops."

The problem is that the freedom the Internet provide cuts both ways: Just as it gives the Pentagon a chance to present the war one way, it gives soldiers and regular citizens a chance to present their own views. And they aren't always rosy.

Garfield addessed the issue with Hernandez.

"As you have seen some of the other videos from the ground in Iraq," he asked, "have you cringed at the message that some of your own troops are sending in what they choose to upload to YouTube?"

Responded Hernandez: "Definitely. If the videos show extreme gore or if they mock our Iraqi hosts, I would be disgusted. Our aim is to be far above, beyond that."

In recent days, there have been a slew of high-profile news reports critical of how the Department of Veterans Affairs has been caring for Iraq war veterans.

The Washington Post recently reported on the "other" side of Walter Reed Army Medical Center, where soldiers "encounter a messy bureaucratic battlefield nearly as chaotic as the real battlefields they faced overseas," as the Post put it. Newsweek also ran cover story on wounded veterans struggling to recover and Bob Woodruff's recent ABC documentary about his own recovery also examined the challenges to get proper medical care that other veterans with traumatic brain injuries are encountering within the VA system.

In the wake of such reporting, reports are circulating that soldiers at Walter Reed have been instructed not to speak with the media. The Army Times wrote yesterday that soldiers in the center's Medical Hold Unit "say they have been told they will wake up at 6 a.m. every morning and have their rooms ready for inspection at 7 a.m., and that they must not speak to the media." Noting that it is "unusual for soldiers to have daily inspections after Basic Training," the paper writes that one soldier told them that "some soldiers believe this is a form of punishment for the trouble soldiers caused by talking to the media.”

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Nicholas Kristof's column in the New York Times ($) last Tuesday concluded with a remark about the Pentagon's internal news clipping service, the Early Bird. It's a daily compendium of articles related to military matters that's widely read by those inside the Pentagon, including the reporters who work there.

Kristof wrote that the traditionally "dispassionate collection" of articles was, of late, reflecting some spin. "Lately it has been leading with in-house spin," wrote Kristof. "The Early Bird of Nov. 20, for example, began with three separate unpublished letters to the editor by Pentagon officials before getting to the news from around the world." Pentagon Correspondent David Martin confirms that he's noticed the same pattern in the past month or two, and it appears to be a part of the larger communications strategy that the Pentagon has adopted recently. One aspect of that strategy includes rebutting news reports that the Department of Defense perceives as inaccurate or misleading.

In the past, says Martin, the Early Bird has always been a "fair mix of news" in which you could "almost never spot any slant." At some point during Sec. Rumsfeld's tenure, says Martin, the first section of the Early Bird began including corrections of military-related stories that had been printed in newspapers the previous day. They were primarily small factual corrections, such as a major general being referred to as a brigadier general, etc.

"There was this sort of unstated editorial point that these corrections were important" since they appeared before other news, and "it just emphasized the point that newspapers get it wrong sometimes," said Martin. Nonetheless, he doesn't think most reporters thought too much of it.

But more recently, letters from the Pentagon to the editors of various papers have been included in the front section of Early Bird, and "they were contesting not just an individual fact, but sometimes contesting the whole thrust of a story." It's an example of the types of rebuttals that have been identified as part of the Department of Defense's new strategy, says Martin, referring to a recent situation in which a public affairs officer took issue with CNN reporter Barbara Starr's tone in calling a top military spokesman's comments a "stunning development" in a news segment.

"When you walk around this building, you will inevitably run into someone who's been tasked with responding to the thrust of some story," said Martin. "That means putting it in the Early Bird. It's part of this battle to get their message out."

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The Skinny, Hillary Profita's take on the top of the news and the best of the Web, appears daily here on Public Eye and on the "Evening News" page at CBSNews.com.

The Pentagon’s secret review of U.S. military options in Iraq boils down to this: "Go Big," "Go Long" or "Go Home." In other words, writes the Washington Post today: "Send in more troops, shrink the force but stay longer, or pull out, according to senior defense officials."

The likely recommendation from the group will be the "Go Big but Short While Transitioning to Go Long," (those are the words of "one defense official," not mine) which "could backfire if Iraqis suspect it is really a way for the United States to moonwalk out of Iraq -- that is, to imitate singer Michael Jackson's trademark move of appearing to move forward while actually sliding backward."

I was prepared for some vaguely sports-related analogies to come along, but I really never expected a Michael Jackson-moonwalk analogy. Anyway, the Post notes that the "GBSWTGL" plan "may be remarkably close" to the recommendation expected from the Iraq Study Group, whose findings are expected to be released next month.

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Before this week’s big change at the Pentagon, there was another, albeit less momentous change that gained headlines -- the Pentagon’s newest public relations strategy. We noted last week that the Department of Defense appeared to be taking a page from the White House Communications Office in ramping up the “rapid response” unit of its public relations operation – a technique traditionally seen only during the rough and tumble of political campaigns. Much like the White House’s strategy, one aspect of this effort includes rebutting news reports that the Pentagon perceives as inaccurate or misleading.The New York Times last week looked into the operation, noting that one television reporter had been approached by the Pentagon press office regarding the tone of her reporting:

Barbara Starr, a veteran Pentagon correspondent for CNN, said she was surprised last month to be challenged by press officers within minutes after completing a report on a Baghdad briefing where the military’s top spokesman called the results of recent security operations “disheartening.” Ms. Starr said she had called it a “stunning development” on the air.

“They objected to the tone during my live shot,” she said. “My view is that if a general says things are disheartening, that is news.”

Pentagon Spokesman Brian Whitman told the Times that he was unaware of the call to Starr, “but said that he had challenged the content of television broadcasts before and that it had nothing to do with the reorganization of the press office.”

CBS News Pentagon correspondent David Martin told us that he hasn’t yet “been hit by the quick-reaction squad. But I would agree with Barbara that the use of the word ‘disheartening’ by the chief U.S. military spokesman in Iraq was a ‘stunning development,’ particularly since he was reading from a prepared text.”

As far as the potential effect that this might have on his reporting, Martin said that the new strategy poses detriments – as well as benefits.

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The White House Communications Office’s latest strategy – rebutting news coverage with its “Setting The Record Straight” press releases -- mirrors the “rapid response” methods used in campaigns. And now it appears that the Pentagon is employing similar tools to address negative publicity. In response to questions about the new strategy, Pentagon press secretary Eric Ruff invoked the same language, saying that the program “will help the department ‘set the record straight’ and provide accurate, timely information,” wrote the Associated Press.

The AP obtained a memo from Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs Dorrance Smith describing the program. The Pentagon press office will be expanding its operations to include “new teams of people [who] will 'develop messages' for the 24-hour news cycle and 'correct the record,'" writes the AP. The plan also includes dispatching “surrogates” who would speak on behalf of the Pentagon and a focus on “new media,” such as blogs. The changes have apparently “been in the works for months,” and construction of offices for the expanded staff commenced Friday.

According to Ruff, the program was not initiated to respond to sagging support for the war or to aid in next week’s elections. Instead it’s a response to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld’s criticism of how the Pentagon communications department is working to combat the messages that terrorists are effectively sending to the world. For months, Rumsfeld has been speaking publicly about such agitation, including a recent speech during which he said that terrorists had been successful in “manipulating the media.” Months before that, he was addressing publicly his frustration with what he called an overemphasis on negative information about the war in the press.

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Last month, the Associated Press called upon the Pentagon to either release or bring formal charges against Iraqi AP photographer Bilal Hussein, who’s been detained in Iraq since April. His case bears a striking similarity to that of CBS cameraman Abdul Ameer Younis Hussein, who was detained in Iraq for a year before he was acquitted based on a lack of evidence.

The Committee to Protect Journalists has also been seeking information from the Pentagon regarding Bilal Hussein’s detention. A spokesman responded in a letter to the organization yesterday, reiterating the military’s decision to hold Hussein. Writes the AP today:

Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman, in a letter to the Committee to Protect Journalists, did not provide details about why Iraqi photographer Bilal Hussein continues to be held without charges at a U.S.-run prison camp. He instead repeated the military's longstanding assertion that it detained Hussein under authority of U.N. resolutions and in accord with the Geneva Conventions.

...The military has said he was in the company of two alleged insurgents, in an apartment where there were bomb-making materials, and that his detention was for "imperative reasons of security" under U.N. resolutions. His "strong ties" to insurgents go beyond the role of a journalist, the military has said.

The Pentagon’s response also said that Hussein has been “given an opportunity to provide information for consideration in at least two of three military reviews of his detention.” But AP lawyer Dave Tomlin said Hussein was notified of only one hearing – after it took place. "We regard all these so-called due process events as legally meaningless, and in fact consider it laughable that the term 'due process' would even be applied to them," Tomlin told the AP.

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Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld’s speech to the Council on Foreign Relations last Friday received relatively little coverage over the past three-day weekend but upon close review, it raised a host of very interesting points. The address came as part of an administration reaction to a recent Pentagon review of the war on terrorism that stressed a lengthy engagement and noted the lack of strategic communications efforts. While Rumsfeld’s observations were valid, his calls for a more aggressive media engagement leave some sticky issues unanswered for the U.S. press.

First, let’s get a little recap of the Secretary’s speech. First, Rumsfeld walked through some of the sophisticated means used by terrorist groups like al Qaeda to spread messages – e-mails, the Internet, news beamed worldwide on satellite TV (such as Al Jazeera). He talked of the mass proliferation of satellite news, noting:

A few years ago in Iraq, under Saddam Hussein, an Iraqi could have his tongue cut out if he was found in possession of a satellite dish or used the Internet without government approval. Today, satellite dishes are ubiquitous in that country as well.

Regrettably, many of the news channels being watched through these dishes are extremely hostile to the West.

The growing number of media outlets in many parts of the world still have relatively immature standards and practices that too often serve to inflame and distort -- rather than to explain and inform. And while al-Qaeda and extremist movements have utilized this forum for many years, and have successfully further poisoned the Muslim public's view of the West, we have barely even begun to compete in reaching their audiences.

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We’ve certainly seen a fair share of media controversies over the past few years, but the latest has very little to do with America’s Fourth Estate (we think.) The Los Angeles Times and The New York Times are reporting on a Pentagon effort to pay for and plant positive stories about the Iraq war in Iraqi newspapers. This is causing a stir not only within the journalism community here, but also within the Pentagon itself, according to the reports. Winning hearts and minds or subverting the establishment of a free and independent press? What do you think?

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