All Blog Posts from Public Eye

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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In American politics, there are certain rhetorical legacies that its characters leave behind -- “Ask not what your country can do for you…” “I did not have sexual relations with that woman…” you know the drill. In the wake of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld’s resignation, there is one quote that everyone seems to be recalling today:

"Reports that say that something hasn't happened are always interesting to me because as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns -- the ones we don't know we don't know."

Even the president recalled it with a chuckle as he announced the nomination of Robert Gates to replace Rumsfeld: “Don once famously said, ‘There are known knowns; there are known unknowns; and there are unknown unknowns,’” said Bush. “Well, Mr. Secretary, here is a known known: Your service has made America stronger, and made America a safer nation. You will be missed, and I wish you and Joyce all the best in the years to come.”

Recollection of everyone’s favorite Rumsfeldism is clearly not lost on anyone who’s covering Rumsfeld’s departure.

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“Post-election job number one” for the Bush administration is to rid itself of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, a New York Times editorial argued today. And, in a serendipitous turn of events, it appears that the President has pretty much done exactly that. He just completed a moments ago announcing Rumsfeld’s replacement, former CIA Director Robert Gates.

I guess the Democrats aren’t the only ones who got what they wanted today.

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‘Tis a banner day for the endless reading of election tea leaves, and plenty of the usual analysts are offering their perspectives – particularly with regard to the most recent little surprises that the last week has brought.

This past weekend was ushered in with news that National Association of Evangelicals’ spokesman Ted Haggard was resigning his post following accusations from a male prostitute who claimed to have had numerous meth-fueled trysts with the pastor. Haggard later admitted to buying meth and receiving a massage from the prostitute, and then on Sunday told members of his church that he was guilty of “sexual immorality.”

The predictions of how this might affect Republicans at the polls are, predictably, mixed. One “conservative activist who describes himself as a former homosexual,” Stephen Bennett, told the Kansas City Star: "Will this affect the elections next Tuesday? ... You better believe it. The more and more hypocrisy I see each day, the more I realize next Tuesday we are going to get exactly what we deserve." In a shocking twist, a Republican pollster disagreed, arguing that conservatives are indeed put off by such news, but not that much: "Are they so discouraged they're going to participate in any movement to have Howard Dean and Nancy Pelosi run the country? No."

If Haggard’s woes are affecting your vote, John Dickerson suggests that you e-mail him explaining why (slatepolitics@slate.com) because, writes Dickerson: “I don't think you really exist or exist in large enough numbers to change much on Tuesday.” So take that.

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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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Critiques about media coverage of Iraq often highlight the claim that news outlets don’t treat positive events related to the war in Iraq with the same amount of attention that they give to bad news about the war. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, often a critic along these lines, recently remarked that terrorists have been successful in “manipulating the media.”

The Pentagon’s concern about how the media relays events related to the war is substantial enough that it is being addressed with a bid for “a two-year, $20 million public relations contract that calls for extensive monitoring of U.S. and Middle Eastern media in an effort to promote more positive coverage of news from Iraq,” writes Walter Pincus in the Washington Post today. According to the proposal, “the contract calls for assembling a database of selected news stories and assessing their tone as part of a program to provide ‘public relations products’ that would improve coverage of the military command's performance.” One anonymous “public relations practictioner” told the Post that “military commanders ‘are overwhelmed by the media out there and are trying to understand how to get their information out.’

“‘They want it [news] to be received by audiences as it is transmitted [by them], but they don't like how it turns out,’ he said. As an example, he said, there are complaints that reports from Iraq sometimes quote Shiite cleric and militia leader Moqtada al-Sadr more than military commanders.”

The article notes a similar example from Rumsfeld during a speech Tuesday: “a search of leading newspapers revealed that a soldier punished for misconduct was written about ‘10 times’ as often as the first recipient of the Medal of Honor in anti-terrorism efforts.”

The entire article is worth reading, and it will likely generate much fodder for those engaged in the ever-present “why isn’t there more good news coming out of Iraq?” debate -- an issue that we’ve touched on before, so it’s worth revisiting a few of those posts.

UPDATE: Rumsfeld expands on his recent comments in a Los Angeles Times op-ed.

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If you’ve ever had a doubt about the detail-oriented nature of the White House press corps, here’s a tidbit from a pool report on the President’s cabinet meeting today:

“Chertoff sat next to POTUS on his right. Rumsfeld sat next to him on his left, and appears to have brought his own coffee, since there was a small, brown insulated paper cup sitting next to his china coffee setting.”

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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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The Washington rumor mill has kicked into overdrive recently with speculation over the possible resignation of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. What’s the scoop? Well, we went to one of the most reliable sources in Washington when it comes to Pentagon reporting, CBS News correspondent David Martin and asked for his professional observations on the topic. Here’s what he told us:

A couple months ago a cameraman setting up for one of Defense Secretary Rumsfeld’s press conferences saw some security guards enter the briefing room and heard them say something to the effect that Mrs. Rumsfeld would be attending. That immediately set off a flurry of rumors that she was coming to watch her husband announce his resignation. It was, of course, a false alarm, but it shows just how intense the interest is in Rumsfeld’s future.



Now the rumors have started again. Certainly there is no shortage of people who wish it were true. And it’s easy enough to construct a plausible scenario. He is, after all, a 73 year old man working a schedule that would reduce the rest of us to tears. He is just completing a major review of defense strategies and programs which will be the basis for Pentagon budgets for years to come. A permanent Iraqi government is about to be elected and significant U.S. troop withdrawals are expected to begin soon after that. He could say with some justification that a turning point has been reached and it’s time to turn the job over to a younger man.



So what do we know for sure? He says he has no plans to retire, and his aides say they have seen no evidence that he intends to leave before the second term is over. He has told at least one aide he plans to stay all four years, and he presses people he is interviewing for positions at the Pentagon to commit to serving until the end of the administration. He can’t do much about being 73, but he has an energy level that borders on freakish.



Of course a man as combative as Rumsfeld would never let on that he was thinking of packing it in. It would only give heart to those who oppose him. For what it’s worth, in six years of covering him, there has only been one time when I thought he looked and sounded like a man who might resign. It was at the height of the Abu Ghraib scandal when for the one and only time he appeared to me to lose at least some of his monumental self-confidence. We now know, because he has said so, that he did offer his resignation to the President then – not once but twice.

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You might recall that back in October, a Pentagon spokesperson caused a stir for calling on reporters to not treat the 2,000 military death in Iraq as a “milestone.” Editor & Publisher reported at the time that U.S. Army Lt. Col. Steve Boylan wrote in an e-mail to reporters that the true milestones of the war were “rarely covered or discussed" and encouraged them to "celebrate the daily milestones, the accomplishments they have secured and look to the future of a free and democratic Iraq and to the day that all of our troops return home to the heroes welcome they deserve."


Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld conveyed a similar message during a speech this morning at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, during which he took aim at media coverage of the war in Iraq.


From the speech (NRO’s Stephen Spruiell has the full text):

The media serves a valuable -- indeed an indispensable -- role in informing our society and holding government to account. But I would submit it is also important for the media to hold itself to account.



We have arrived at a strange time in this country where the worst about America and our military seems to be so quickly taken as truth by the press and reported and spread around the world -- with little or no context or scrutiny -- let alone correction or accountability -- even after the fact. Speed it appears is often the first goal, not accuracy, not context.

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