Retired USAF Col. Sam Gardiner is a former instructor in military operations and strategy at the National War College, the Air War College and the Naval War College. He has researched and prepared a report on the Bush administration’s Iraqi disinformation campaign during the run-up and invasion phases of the war. You can find links to his study, Truth From These Podia (Summary of a Study Strategic Influence, Perception Management, Strategic Information Warfare and Strategic Psychological Operations in Gulf II) here, here, here, here, here, and here.
Please go read it. It details the manner in which the Bush administration and the Pentagon waged a Psy Ops campaign against the American Public to deceive us into supporting the Iraq War in 2003, a campaign that has no doubt continued down to the present time.
I emailed Col. Gardiner suggesting he contact John Conyers’ office. He replied that he already had but felt the proposed forum last week would not have allowed him enough time to adequately explain his study. My email to him attempting to persuade him to reconsider that decision is after the break.
Thanks for your gracious response. Just for your information, I am a retired attorney (retired involuntarily due to chronic illness). I can appreciate your concern that the amount of time that would be spent on your research at Congressman Conyers’ forum last week might have seemed inadequate. If I had put all the time and effort into the report on the Bush disinformation campaign that you have I would probably have felt the same way you did. Clearly, the forum would not have provided enough time for an adequate discussion of your work. It would have just barely grazed the surface of what you have discovered.
However (and you had to know that was coming from a lawyer), I think the purpose of Conyers’ forums is to educate and inform the America Public of the wealth of information that is available on these issues which the media has failed to address (for whatever reason). I noted in your postscript to your report that you specifically mentioned the failure of journalists to analyze their own inability to critically assess the stories they were receiving from the Pentagon and the White House.
This is indeed one of the crucial issues. Our media has been either lazy or stupid (or both) in the way it has covered the Iraq War. I know that failure is a matter of great concern to Congressman Conyers, which is one of the reasons he has been promoting the Downing Street Memo as well as similar stories that the national media has refused or failed to cover adequately.
Yes, he is a partisan Democrat, but I truly believe he has no axe to grind and is pursuing this matter in the best interests of the country. He will never be a Presidential candidate, nor does he need to promote himself to win re-election to the House. In that sense he is free to either do nothing and accept the sinecures of his office, or to act as his conscience dictates. I think he is a man of character, and seeing no one else in a leadership position in either party stepping forward to challenge this administration, he stepped into the void and has taken that burden on himself. I admire him greatly for that.
I do not know your political leanings. Before this past election I had always considered myself as an independent, having voted in the past for John Anderson, George H.W. Bush (the father) and Ross Perot. I have always been conservative on matters of fiscal policy and libertarian on social issues. At this point, however, I see no option but to support the Democratic Party, flawed as it is. I have lost all faith in the Bush administration and in the GOP controlled Congress. I believe they have lied about too many matters of critical importance to this Nation, not least of which was the run up to the Iraq War. The path they have started this country down is one for which the logical conclusion can only be the demise of our Republic and our democracy. When our government actively pursues a policy of deceiving and misleading the public, and is not challenged by either Congress or the Press, the liberties we hold so dearly are at great risk of being lost. History has shown us that governments that lie to their people inevitably result in tyranny.
What Conyers is trying to do is raise the public’s consciousness regarding the deceits, evasions and reckless policies the Bush administration has pursued with respect to Iraq. I know that you feel your topic deserves hours rather than minutes of discussion, but the first thing we must do is make the public aware of the fact that they have been intentionally deceived and by whom. I think a public appearance by you could be very helpful in that regard, particularly if it was focused on the media’s failures.
Because there are two matters of critical importance here: one, the lies and deceptions coming from the government, and two, and perhaps more importantly, the complicit nature of our news media, which has actively propagated and distributed this disinformation to the public rather than investigate the stories with a skeptical eye toward the veracity of their sources.
Your conclusion that 50 or more news stories were generated pursuant to this disinformation/psy ops campaign in 2003 is vitally important, but just as crucial is the analysis showing how the media acted as the government’s witting or unwitting partner in pushing these deceptions on the American public. I know Congressman Conyers’ plans more forums or events to publicize these issues and I hope you will reconsider and attend one of them in the future as a witness.
No, they aren’t formal hearings, but they are attracting attention now from some in the mainstream media, and unless the information is disseminated to these people time after time, I fear it will once again be ignored. Certainly they are not looking for stories that are critical of this administration and its actions unless they are forced to confront the evidence. We are seeing that happen now with the Downing Street Memo, where attention is being paid only because of the efforts of thousands of private citizens who have emailed major media outlets asking them to cover it, and by a few stalwart representatives such as John Conyers who have actively sought to promote the story.
The story you have to tell about the government’s disinformation campaign in Iraq is a critical piece of the mosaic. We know that the decision for war was made many months (if not years) before the actual invasion. We know the administration deliberately hid the weak nature of the intelligence they had about Iraq’s wmd and grossly exaggerated the dangers posed by Saddam. Your work helps us see the manner in which they executed that policy to deceive the American Public.
If you watched Congressman Conyers’ forum on C-Span last week, as I did, you saw that in addition to the statements the witnesses gave, they were also asked numerous questions by those representatives that appeared with Conyers. Indeed, most of Mr. Ray McGovern’s testimony about the “fixed intelligence” came during the Q and A session. I think that an appearance by you at a similar forum would undoubtedly follow a similar path. A short statement, and then more detail provided during the question and answer part of the program. In any event, it would allow you to hold up your report before the C-Span cameras and inform the public where on the internet they could find it. That alone would be an invaluable public service and would achieve a wider distribution of your report.
It would have been nice if someone in the media had taken your report and run with it and started a national debate over the issue of government disinformation targeted at the American Public, but that is not the kind of country we live in anymore. Instead we have to fight to make these stories known and debated. It’s not easy, it can be dispiriting, but it is what we have to do if we want to maintain our democracy.
Thank you for your time. I will be posting this email and links to your report in a diary to be posted at Daily Kos ( http://www.dailykos.com/ ) and Booman Tribune ( http://www.boomantribune.com/ ) in the hopes that others will read your analysis, and come to the same conclusions regarding its significance that I have. I hope to have the opportunity to see you on TV soon (C-Span or otherwise) discussing your research and conclusions.
Sincerely,
Steven D
A very gracious hat tip to Gabriele Droz for pointing me to Col. Gardiner’s study on the web.
