[Infowarrior] - Behind TV Analysts, Pentagon ¹ s Hidden Hand

[Richard Forno]

April 20, 2008
Message Machine
Behind TV Analysts, Pentagon¹s Hidden Hand
By DAVID BARSTOW
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/20/washington/20generals.html

In the summer of 2005, the Bush administration confronted a fresh wave of
criticism over Guantánamo Bay. The detention center had just been branded
³the gulag of our times² by Amnesty International, there were new
allegations of abuse from United Nations human rights experts and calls were
mounting for its closure.

The administration¹s communications experts responded swiftly. Early one
Friday morning, they put a group of retired military officers on one of the
jets normally used by Vice President Dick Cheney and flew them to Cuba for a
carefully orchestrated tour of Guantánamo.

To the public, these men are members of a familiar fraternity, presented
tens of thousands of times on television and radio as ³military analysts²
whose long service has equipped them to give authoritative and unfettered
judgments about the most pressing issues of the post-Sept. 11 world.

Hidden behind that appearance of objectivity, though, is a Pentagon
information apparatus that has used those analysts in a campaign to generate
favorable news coverage of the administration¹s wartime performance, an
examination by The New York Times has found.

The effort, which began with the buildup to the Iraq war and continues to
this day, has sought to exploit ideological and military allegiances, and
also a powerful financial dynamic: Most of the analysts have ties to
military contractors vested in the very war policies they are asked to
assess on air.

Those business relationships are hardly ever disclosed to the viewers, and
sometimes not even to the networks themselves. But collectively, the men on
the plane and several dozen other military analysts represent more than 150
military contractors either as lobbyists, senior executives, board members
or consultants. The companies include defense heavyweights, but also scores
of smaller companies, all part of a vast assemblage of contractors
scrambling for hundreds of billions in military business generated by the
administration¹s war on terror. It is a furious competition, one in which
inside information and easy access to senior officials are highly prized.

Records and interviews show how the Bush administration has used its control
over access and information in an effort to transform the analysts into a
kind of media Trojan horse ‹ an instrument intended to shape terrorism
coverage from inside the major TV and radio networks.

Analysts have been wooed in hundreds of private briefings with senior
military leaders, including officials with significant influence over
contracting and budget matters, records show. They have been taken on tours
of Iraq and given access to classified intelligence. They have been briefed
by officials from the White House, State Department and Justice Department,
including Mr. Cheney, Alberto R. Gonzales and Stephen J. Hadley.

In turn, members of this group have echoed administration talking points,
sometimes even when they suspected the information was false or inflated.
Some analysts acknowledge they suppressed doubts because they feared
jeopardizing their access.

A few expressed regret for participating in what they regarded as an effort
to dupe the American public with propaganda dressed as independent military
analysis.

³It was them saying, ŒWe need to stick our hands up your back and move your
mouth for you,¹ ² Robert S. Bevelacqua, a retired Green Beret and former Fox
News analyst, said.

Kenneth Allard, a former NBC military analyst who has taught information
warfare at the National Defense University, said the campaign amounted to a
sophisticated information operation. ³This was a coherent, active policy,²
he said.

As conditions in Iraq deteriorated, Mr. Allard recalled, he saw a yawning
gap between what analysts were told in private briefings and what subsequent
inquiries and books later revealed.

³Night and day,² Mr. Allard said, ³I felt we¹d been hosed.²

The Pentagon defended its relationship with military analysts, saying they
had been given only factual information about the war. ³The intent and
purpose of this is nothing other than an earnest attempt to inform the
American people,² Bryan Whitman, a Pentagon spokesman, said.

It was, Mr. Whitman added, ³a bit incredible² to think retired military
officers could be ³wound up² and turned into ³puppets of the Defense
Department.²

Many analysts strongly denied that they had either been co-opted or had
allowed outside business interests to affect their on-air comments, and some
have used their platforms to criticize the conduct of the war. Several, like
Jeffrey D. McCausland, a CBS military analyst and defense industry lobbyist,
said they kept their networks informed of their outside work and recused
themselves from coverage that touched on business interests.

³I¹m not here representing the administration,² Dr. McCausland said.

Some network officials, meanwhile, acknowledged only a limited understanding
of their analysts¹ interactions with the administration. They said that
while they were sensitive to potential conflicts of interest, they did not
hold their analysts to the same ethical standards as their news employees
regarding outside financial interests. The onus is on their analysts to
disclose conflicts, they said. And whatever the contributions of military
analysts, they also noted the many network journalists who have covered the
war for years in all its complexity.

Five years into the Iraq war, most details of the architecture and execution
of the Pentagon¹s campaign have never been disclosed. But The Times
successfully sued the Defense Department to gain access to 8,000 pages of
e-mail messages, transcripts and records describing years of private
briefings, trips to Iraq and Guantánamo and an extensive Pentagon talking
points operation.

These records reveal a symbiotic relationship where the usual dividing lines
between government and journalism have been obliterated.

Internal Pentagon documents repeatedly refer to the military analysts as
³message force multipliers² or ³surrogates² who could be counted on to
deliver administration ³themes and messages² to millions of Americans ³in
the form of their own opinions.²

Though many analysts are paid network consultants, making $500 to $1,000 per
appearance, in Pentagon meetings they sometimes spoke as if they were
operating behind enemy lines, interviews and transcripts show. Some offered
the Pentagon tips on how to outmaneuver the networks, or as one analyst put
it to Donald H. Rumsfeld, then the defense secretary, ³the Chris Matthewses
and the Wolf Blitzers of the world.² Some warned of planned stories or sent
the Pentagon copies of their correspondence with network news executives.
Many ‹ although certainly not all ‹ faithfully echoed talking points
intended to counter critics.

³Good work,² Thomas G. McInerney, a retired Air Force general, consultant
and Fox News analyst, wrote to the Pentagon after receiving fresh talking
points in late 2006. ³We will use it.²

Again and again, records show, the administration has enlisted analysts as a
rapid reaction force to rebut what it viewed as critical news coverage, some
of it by the networks¹ own Pentagon correspondents. For example, when news
articles revealed that troops in Iraq were dying because of inadequate body
armor, a senior Pentagon official wrote to his colleagues: ³I think our
analysts ‹ properly armed ‹ can push back in that arena.²

The documents released by the Pentagon do not show any quid pro quo between
commentary and contracts. But some analysts said they had used the special
access as a marketing and networking opportunity or as a window into future
business possibilities.

John C. Garrett is a retired Army colonel and unpaid analyst for Fox News TV
and radio. He is also a lobbyist at Patton Boggs who helps firms win
Pentagon contracts, including in Iraq. In promotional materials, he states
that as a military analyst he ³is privy to weekly access and briefings with
the secretary of defense, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and other
high level policy makers in the administration.² One client told investors
that Mr. Garrett¹s special access and decades of experience helped him ³to
know in advance ‹ and in detail ‹ how best to meet the needs² of the Defense
Department and other agencies.

In interviews Mr. Garrett said there was an inevitable overlap between his
dual roles. He said he had gotten ³information you just otherwise would not
get,² from the briefings and three Pentagon-sponsored trips to Iraq. He also
acknowledged using this access and information to identify opportunities for
clients. ³You can¹t help but look for that,² he said, adding, ³If you know a
capability that would fill a niche or need, you try to fill it. ³That¹s good
for everybody.²

At the same time, in e-mail messages to the Pentagon, Mr. Garrett displayed
an eagerness to be supportive with his television and radio commentary.
³Please let me know if you have any specific points you want covered or that
you would prefer to downplay,² he wrote in January 2007, before President
Bush went on TV to describe the surge strategy in Iraq.

Conversely, the administration has demonstrated that there is a price for
sustained criticism, many analysts said. ³You¹ll lose all access,² Dr.
McCausland said.

With a majority of Americans calling the war a mistake despite all
administration attempts to sway public opinion, the Pentagon has focused in
the last couple of years on cultivating in particular military analysts
frequently seen and heard in conservative news outlets, records and
interviews show.

Some of these analysts were on the mission to Cuba on June 24, 2005 ‹ the
first of six such Guantánamo trips ‹ which was designed to mobilize analysts
against the growing perception of Guantánamo as an international symbol of
inhumane treatment. On the flight to Cuba, for much of the day at Guantánamo
and on the flight home that night, Pentagon officials briefed the 10 or so
analysts on their key messages ‹ how much had been spent improving the
facility, the abuse endured by guards, the extensive rights afforded
detainees.

The results came quickly. The analysts went on TV and radio, decrying
Amnesty International, criticizing calls to close the facility and asserting
that all detainees were treated humanely.

³The impressions that you¹re getting from the media and from the various
pronouncements being made by people who have not been here in my opinion are
totally false,² Donald W. Shepperd, a retired Air Force general, reported
live on CNN by phone from Guantánamo that same afternoon.

The next morning, Montgomery Meigs, a retired Army general and NBC analyst,
appeared on ³Today.² ³There¹s been over $100 million of new construction,²
he reported. ³The place is very professionally run.²

Within days, transcripts of the analysts¹ appearances were circulated to
senior White House and Pentagon officials, cited as evidence of progress in
the battle for hearts and minds at home.

Charting the Campaign

By early 2002, detailed planning for a possible Iraq invasion was under way,
yet an obstacle loomed. Many Americans, polls showed, were uneasy about
invading a country with no clear connection to the Sept. 11 attacks.
Pentagon and White House officials believed the military analysts could play
a crucial role in helping overcome this resistance.

Torie Clarke, the former public relations executive who oversaw the
Pentagon¹s dealings with the analysts as assistant secretary of defense for
public affairs, had come to her job with distinct ideas about achieving what
she called ³information dominance.² In a spin-saturated news culture, she
argued, opinion is swayed most by voices perceived as authoritative and
utterly independent.

And so even before Sept. 11, she built a system within the Pentagon to
recruit ³key influentials² ‹ movers and shakers from all walks who with the
proper ministrations might be counted on to generate support for Mr.
Rumsfeld¹s priorities.

In the months after Sept. 11, as every network rushed to retain its own
all-star squad of retired military officers, Ms. Clarke and her staff sensed
a new opportunity. To Ms. Clarke¹s team, the military analysts were the
ultimate ³key influential² ‹ authoritative, most of them decorated war
heroes, all reaching mass audiences.

The analysts, they noticed, often got more airtime than network reporters,
and they were not merely explaining the capabilities of Apache helicopters.
They were framing how viewers ought to interpret events. What is more, while
the analysts were in the news media, they were not of the news media. They
were military men, many of them ideologically in sync with the
administration¹s neoconservative brain trust, many of them important players
in a military industry anticipating large budget increases to pay for an
Iraq war.

Even analysts with no defense industry ties, and no fondness for the
administration, were reluctant to be critical of military leaders, many of
whom were friends. ³It is very hard for me to criticize the United States
Army,² said William L. Nash, a retired Army general and ABC analyst. ³It is
my life.²

Other administrations had made sporadic, small-scale attempts to build
relationships with the occasional military analyst. But these were trifling
compared with what Ms. Clarke¹s team had in mind. Don Meyer, an aide to Ms.
Clarke, said a strategic decision was made in 2002 to make the analysts the
main focus of the public relations push to construct a case for war.
Journalists were secondary. ³We didn¹t want to rely on them to be our
primary vehicle to get information out,² Mr. Meyer said.

The Pentagon¹s regular press office would be kept separate from the military
analysts. The analysts would instead be catered to by a small group of
political appointees, with the point person being Brent T. Krueger, another
senior aide to Ms. Clarke. The decision recalled other administration
tactics that subverted traditional journalism. Federal agencies, for
example, have paid columnists to write favorably about the administration.
They have distributed to local TV stations hundreds of fake news segments
with fawning accounts of administration accomplishments. The Pentagon itself
has made covert payments to Iraqi newspapers to publish coalition
propaganda.

Rather than complain about the ³media filter,² each of these techniques
simply converted the filter into an amplifier. This time, Mr. Krueger said,
the military analysts would in effect be ³writing the op-ed² for the war.

Assembling the Team

>From the start, interviews show, the White House took a keen interest in
which analysts had been identified by the Pentagon, requesting lists of
potential recruits, and suggesting names. Ms. Clarke¹s team wrote summaries
describing their backgrounds, business affiliations and where they stood on
the war.

³Rumsfeld ultimately cleared off on all invitees,² said Mr. Krueger, who
left the Pentagon in 2004. (Through a spokesman, Mr. Rumsfeld declined to
comment for this article.)

Over time, the Pentagon recruited more than 75 retired officers, although
some participated only briefly or sporadically. The largest contingent was
affiliated with Fox News, followed by NBC and CNN, the other networks with
24-hour cable outlets. But analysts from CBS and ABC were included, too.
Some recruits, though not on any network payroll, were influential in other
ways ‹ either because they were sought out by radio hosts, or because they
often published op-ed articles or were quoted in magazines, Web sites and
newspapers. At least nine of them have written op-ed articles for The Times.

The group was heavily represented by men involved in the business of helping
companies win military contracts. Several held senior positions with
contractors that gave them direct responsibility for winning new Pentagon
business. James Marks, a retired Army general and analyst for CNN from 2004
to 2007, pursued military and intelligence contracts as a senior executive
with McNeil Technologies. Still others held board positions with military
firms that gave them responsibility for government business. General
McInerney, the Fox analyst, for example, sits on the boards of several
military contractors, including Nortel Government Solutions, a supplier of
communication networks.

Several were defense industry lobbyists, such as Dr. McCausland, who works
at Buchanan Ingersoll & Rooney, a major lobbying firm where he is director
of a national security team that represents several military contractors.
³We offer clients access to key decision makers,² Dr. McCausland¹s team
promised on the firm¹s Web site.

Dr. McCausland was not the only analyst making this pledge. Another was
Joseph W. Ralston, a retired Air Force general. Soon after signing on with
CBS, General Ralston was named vice chairman of the Cohen Group, a
consulting firm headed by a former defense secretary, William Cohen, himself
now a ³world affairs² analyst for CNN. ³The Cohen Group knows that getting
to Œyes¹ in the aerospace and defense market ‹ whether in the United States
or abroad ‹ requires that companies have a thorough, up-to-date
understanding of the thinking of government decision makers,² the company
tells prospective clients on its Web site.

There were also ideological ties.

Two of NBC¹s most prominent analysts, Barry R. McCaffrey and the late Wayne
A. Downing, were on the advisory board of the Committee for the Liberation
of Iraq, an advocacy group created with White House encouragement in 2002 to
help make the case for ousting Saddam Hussein. Both men also had their own
consulting firms and sat on the boards of major military contractors.

Many also shared with Mr. Bush¹s national security team a belief that
pessimistic war coverage broke the nation¹s will to win in Vietnam, and
there was a mutual resolve not to let that happen with this war.

This was a major theme, for example, with Paul E. Vallely, a Fox News
analyst from 2001 to 2007. A retired Army general who had specialized in
psychological warfare, Mr. Vallely co-authored a paper in 1980 that accused
American news organizations of failing to defend the nation from ³enemy²
propaganda during Vietnam.

³We lost the war ‹ not because we were outfought, but because we were out
Psyoped,² he wrote. He urged a radically new approach to psychological
operations in future wars ‹ taking aim at not just foreign adversaries but
domestic audiences, too. He called his approach ³MindWar² ‹ using network TV
and radio to ³strengthen our national will to victory.²

The Selling of the War

>From their earliest sessions with the military analysts, Mr. Rumsfeld and
his aides spoke as if they were all part of the same team.

In interviews, participants described a powerfully seductive environment ‹
the uniformed escorts to Mr. Rumsfeld¹s private conference room, the best
government china laid out, the embossed name cards, the blizzard of
PowerPoints, the solicitations of advice and counsel, the appeals to duty
and country, the warm thank you notes from the secretary himself.

³Oh, you have no idea,² Mr. Allard said, describing the effect. ³You¹re
back. They listen to you. They listen to what you say on TV.² It was, he
said, ³psyops on steroids² ‹ a nuanced exercise in influence through
flattery and proximity. ³It¹s not like it¹s, ŒWe¹ll pay you $500 to get our
story out,¹ ² he said. ³It¹s more subtle.²

The access came with a condition. Participants were instructed not to quote
their briefers directly or otherwise describe their contacts with the
Pentagon.

In the fall and winter leading up to the invasion, the Pentagon armed its
analysts with talking points portraying Iraq as an urgent threat. The basic
case became a familiar mantra: Iraq possessed chemical and biological
weapons, was developing nuclear weapons, and might one day slip some to Al
Qaeda; an invasion would be a relatively quick and inexpensive ³war of
liberation.²

At the Pentagon, members of Ms. Clarke¹s staff marveled at the way the
analysts seamlessly incorporated material from talking points and briefings
as if it was their own.

³You could see that they were messaging,² Mr. Krueger said. ³You could see
they were taking verbatim what the secretary was saying or what the
technical specialists were saying. And they were saying it over and over and
over.² Some days, he added, ³We were able to click on every single station
and every one of our folks were up there delivering our message. You¹d look
at them and say, ŒThis is working.¹ ²

On April 12, 2003, with major combat almost over, Mr. Rumsfeld drafted a
memorandum to Ms. Clarke. ³Let¹s think about having some of the folks who
did such a good job as talking heads in after this thing is over,² he wrote.

By summer, though, the first signs of the insurgency had emerged. Reports
from journalists based in Baghdad were increasingly suffused with the
imagery of mayhem.

The Pentagon did not have to search far for a counterweight.

It was time, an internal Pentagon strategy memorandum urged, to ³re-energize
surrogates and message-force multipliers,² starting with the military
analysts.

The memorandum led to a proposal to take analysts on a tour of Iraq in
September 2003, timed to help overcome the sticker shock from Mr. Bush¹s
request for $87 billion in emergency war financing.

The group included four analysts from Fox News, one each from CNN and ABC,
and several research-group luminaries whose opinion articles appear
regularly in the nation¹s op-ed pages.

The trip invitation promised a look at ³the real situation on the ground in
Iraq.²

The situation, as described in scores of books, was deteriorating. L. Paul
Bremer III, then the American viceroy in Iraq, wrote in his memoir, ³My Year
in Iraq,² that he had privately warned the White House that the United
States had ³about half the number of soldiers we needed here.²

³We¹re up against a growing and sophisticated threat,² Mr. Bremer recalled
telling the president during a private White House dinner.

That dinner took place on Sept. 24, while the analysts were touring Iraq.

Yet these harsh realities were elided, or flatly contradicted, during the
official presentations for the analysts, records show. The itinerary,
scripted to the minute, featured brief visits to a model school, a few
refurbished government buildings, a center for women¹s rights, a mass grave
and even the gardens of Babylon.

Mostly the analysts attended briefings. These sessions, records show,
spooled out an alternative narrative, depicting an Iraq bursting with
political and economic energy, its security forces blossoming. On the
crucial question of troop levels, the briefings echoed the White House line:
No reinforcements were needed. The ³growing and sophisticated threat²
described by Mr. Bremer was instead depicted as degraded, isolated and on
the run.

³We¹re winning,² a briefing document proclaimed.

One trip participant, General Nash of ABC, said some briefings were so
clearly ³artificial² that he joked to another group member that they were on
³the George Romney memorial trip to Iraq,² a reference to Mr. Romney¹s
infamous claim that American officials had ³brainwashed² him into supporting
the Vietnam War during a tour there in 1965, while he was governor of
Michigan.

But if the trip pounded the message of progress, it also represented a
business opportunity: direct access to the most senior civilian and military
leaders in Iraq and Kuwait, including many with a say in how the president¹s
$87 billion would be spent. It also was a chance to gather inside
information about the most pressing needs confronting the American mission:
the acute shortages of ³up-armored² Humvees; the billions to be spent
building military bases; the urgent need for interpreters; and the ambitious
plans to train Iraq¹s security forces.

Information and access of this nature had undeniable value for trip
participants like William V. Cowan and Carlton A. Sherwood.

Mr. Cowan, a Fox analyst and retired Marine colonel, was the chief executive
of a new military firm, the wvc3 Group. Mr. Sherwood was its executive vice
president. At the time, the company was seeking contracts worth tens of
millions to supply body armor and counterintelligence services in Iraq. In
addition, wvc3 Group had a written agreement to use its influence and
connections to help tribal leaders in Al Anbar Province win reconstruction
contracts from the coalition.

³Those sheiks wanted access to the C.P.A.,² Mr. Cowan recalled in an
interview, referring to the Coalition Provisional Authority.

Mr. Cowan said he pleaded their cause during the trip. ³I tried to push hard
with some of Bremer¹s people to engage these people of Al Anbar,² he said.

Back in Washington, Pentagon officials kept a nervous eye on how the trip
translated on the airwaves. Uncomfortable facts had bubbled up during the
trip. One briefer, for example, mentioned that the Army was resorting to
packing inadequately armored Humvees with sandbags and Kevlar blankets.
Descriptions of the Iraqi security forces were withering. ³They can¹t shoot,
but then again, they don¹t,² one officer told them, according to one
participant¹s notes.

³I saw immediately in 2003 that things were going south,² General Vallely,
one of the Fox analysts on the trip, recalled in an interview with The
Times.

The Pentagon, though, need not have worried.

³You can¹t believe the progress,² General Vallely told Alan Colmes of Fox
News upon his return. He predicted the insurgency would be ³down to a few
numbers² within months.

³We could not be more excited, more pleased,² Mr. Cowan told Greta Van
Susteren of Fox News. There was barely a word about armor shortages or
corrupt Iraqi security forces. And on the key strategic question of the
moment ‹ whether to send more troops ‹ the analysts were unanimous.

³I am so much against adding more troops,² General Shepperd said on CNN.

Access and Influence

Inside the Pentagon and at the White House, the trip was viewed as a
masterpiece in the management of perceptions, not least because it gave fuel
to complaints that ³mainstream² journalists were ignoring the good news in
Iraq.

³We¹re hitting a home run on this trip,² a senior Pentagon official wrote in
an e-mail message to Richard B. Myers and Peter Pace, then chairman and vice
chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Its success only intensified the Pentagon¹s campaign. The pace of briefings
accelerated. More trips were organized. Eventually the effort involved
officials from Washington to Baghdad to Kabul to Guantánamo and back to
Tampa, Fla., the headquarters of United States Central Command.

The scale reflected strong support from the top. When officials in Iraq were
slow to organize another trip for analysts, a Pentagon official fired off an
e-mail message warning that the trips ³have the highest levels of
visibility² at the White House and urging them to get moving before Lawrence
Di Rita, one of Mr. Rumsfeld¹s closest aides, ³picks up the phone and starts
calling the 4-stars.²

Mr. Di Rita, no longer at the Defense Department, said in an interview that
a ³conscious decision² was made to rely on the military analysts to
counteract ³the increasingly negative view of the war² coming from
journalists in Iraq. The analysts, he said, generally had ³a more supportive
view² of the administration and the war, and the combination of their TV
platforms and military cachet made them ideal for rebutting critical
coverage of issues like troop morale, treatment of detainees, inadequate
equipment or poorly trained Iraqi security forces. ³On those issues, they
were more likely to be seen as credible spokesmen,² he said.

For analysts with military industry ties, the attention brought access to a
widening circle of influential officials beyond the contacts they had
accumulated over the course of their careers.

Charles T. Nash, a Fox military analyst and retired Navy captain, is a
consultant who helps small companies break into the military market.
Suddenly, he had entree to a host of senior military leaders, many of whom
he had never met. It was, he said, like being embedded with the Pentagon
leadership. ³You start to recognize what¹s most important to them,² he said,
adding, ³There¹s nothing like seeing stuff firsthand.²

Some Pentagon officials said they were well aware that some analysts viewed
their special access as a business advantage. ³Of course we realized that,²
Mr. Krueger said. ³We weren¹t naïve about that.²

They also understood the financial relationship between the networks and
their analysts. Many analysts were being paid by the ³hit,² the number of
times they appeared on TV. The more an analyst could boast of fresh inside
information from high-level Pentagon ³sources,² the more hits he could
expect. The more hits, the greater his potential influence in the military
marketplace, where several analysts prominently advertised their network
roles.

³They have taken lobbying and the search for contracts to a far higher
level,² Mr. Krueger said. ³This has been highly honed.²

Mr. Di Rita, though, said it never occurred to him that analysts might use
their access to curry favor. Nor, he said, did the Pentagon try to exploit
this dynamic. ³That¹s not something that ever crossed my mind,² he said. In
any event, he argued, the analysts and the networks were the ones
responsible for any ethical complications. ³We assume they know where the
lines are,² he said.

The analysts met personally with Mr. Rumsfeld at least 18 times, records
show, but that was just the beginning. They had dozens more sessions with
the most senior members of his brain trust and access to officials
responsible for managing the billions being spent in Iraq. Other groups of
³key influentials² had meetings, but not nearly as often as the analysts.

An internal memorandum in 2005 helped explain why. The memorandum, written
by a Pentagon official who had accompanied analysts to Iraq, said that based
on her observations during the trip, the analysts ³are having a greater
impact² on network coverage of the military. ³They have now become the go-to
guys not only on breaking stories, but they influence the views on issues,²
she wrote.

Other branches of the administration also began to make use of the analysts.
Mr. Gonzales, then the attorney general, met with them soon after news
leaked that the government was wiretapping terrorism suspects in the United
States without warrants, Pentagon records show. When David H. Petraeus was
appointed the commanding general in Iraq in January 2007, one of his early
acts was to meet with the analysts.

³We knew we had extraordinary access,² said Timur J. Eads, a retired Army
lieutenant colonel and Fox analyst who is vice president of government
relations for Blackbird Technologies, a fast-growing military contractor.

Like several other analysts, Mr. Eads said he had at times held his tongue
on television for fear that ³some four-star could call up and say, ŒKill
that contract.¹ ² For example, he believed Pentagon officials misled the
analysts about the progress of Iraq¹s security forces. ³I know a snow job
when I see one,² he said. He did not share this on TV.

³Human nature,² he explained, though he noted other instances when he was
critical.

Some analysts said that even before the war started, they privately had
questions about the justification for the invasion, but were careful not to
express them on air.

Mr. Bevelacqua, then a Fox analyst, was among those invited to a briefing in
early 2003 about Iraq¹s purported stockpiles of illicit weapons. He recalled
asking the briefer whether the United States had ³smoking gun² proof.

³ ŒWe don¹t have any hard evidence,¹ ² Mr. Bevelacqua recalled the briefer
replying. He said he and other analysts were alarmed by this concession. ³We
are looking at ourselves saying, ŒWhat are we doing?¹ ²

Another analyst, Robert L. Maginnis, a retired Army lieutenant colonel who
works in the Pentagon for a military contractor, attended the same briefing
and recalled feeling ³very disappointed² after being shown satellite
photographs purporting to show bunkers associated with a hidden weapons
program. Mr. Maginnis said he concluded that the analysts were being
³manipulated² to convey a false sense of certainty about the evidence of the
weapons. Yet he and Mr. Bevelacqua and the other analysts who attended the
briefing did not share any misgivings with the American public.

Mr. Bevelacqua and another Fox analyst, Mr. Cowan, had formed the wvc3
Group, and hoped to win military and national security contracts.

³There¹s no way I was going to go down that road and get completely torn 
apart,² Mr. Bevelacqua said. ³You¹re talking about fighting a huge machine.²

Some e-mail messages between the Pentagon and the analysts reveal an 
implicit trade of privileged access for favorable coverage. Robert H. Scales 
Jr., a retired Army general and analyst for Fox News and National Public 
Radio whose consulting company advises several military firms on weapons and 
tactics used in Iraq, wanted the Pentagon to approve high-level briefings 
for him inside Iraq in 2006.

³Recall the stuff I did after my last visit,² he wrote. ³I will do the same 
this time.²

Pentagon Keeps Tabs

As it happened, the analysts¹ news media appearances were being closely 
monitored. The Pentagon paid a private contractor, Omnitec Solutions, 
hundreds of thousands of dollars to scour databases for any trace of the 
analysts, be it a segment on ³The O¹Reilly Factor² or an interview with The 
Daily Inter Lake in Montana, circulation 20,000.

Omnitec evaluated their appearances using the same tools as corporate 
branding experts. One report, assessing the impact of several trips to Iraq 
in 2005, offered example after example of analysts echoing Pentagon themes 
on all the networks.

³Commentary from all three Iraq trips was extremely positive over all,² the 
report concluded.

In interviews, several analysts reacted with dismay when told they were 
described as reliable ³surrogates² in Pentagon documents. And some asserted 
that their Pentagon sessions were, as David L. Grange, a retired Army 
general and CNN analyst put it, ³just upfront information,² while others 
pointed out, accurately, that they did not always agree with the 
administration or each other. ³None of us drink the Kool-Aid,² General 
Scales said.

Likewise, several also denied using their special access for business gain. 
³Not related at all,² General Shepperd said, pointing out that many in the 
Pentagon held CNN ³in the lowest esteem.²

Still, even the mildest of criticism could draw a challenge. Several 
analysts told of fielding telephone calls from displeased defense officials 
only minutes after being on the air.

On Aug. 3, 2005, 14 marines died in Iraq. That day, Mr. Cowan, who said he 
had grown increasingly uncomfortable with the ³twisted version of reality² 
being pushed on analysts in briefings, called the Pentagon to give ³a 
heads-up² that some of his comments on Fox ³may not all be friendly,² 
Pentagon records show. Mr. Rumsfeld¹s senior aides quickly arranged a 
private briefing for him, yet when he told Bill O¹Reilly that the United 
States was ³not on a good glide path right now² in Iraq, the repercussions 
were swift.

Mr. Cowan said he was ³precipitously fired from the analysts group² for this 
appearance. The Pentagon, he wrote in an e-mail message, ³simply didn¹t like 
the fact that I wasn¹t carrying their water.² The next day James T. Conway, 
then director of operations for the Joint Chiefs, presided over another 
conference call with analysts. He urged them, a transcript shows, not to let 
the marines¹ deaths further erode support for the war.

³The strategic target remains our population,² General Conway said. ³We can 
lose people day in and day out, but they¹re never going to beat our 
military. What they can and will do if they can is strip away our support. 
And you guys can help us not let that happen.²

³General, I just made that point on the air,² an analyst replied.

³Let¹s work it together, guys,² General Conway urged.

The Generals¹ Revolt

The full dimensions of this mutual embrace were perhaps never clearer than 
in April 2006, after several of Mr. Rumsfeld¹s former generals ‹ none of 
them network military analysts ‹ went public with devastating critiques of 
his wartime performance. Some called for his resignation.

On Friday, April 14, with what came to be called the ³Generals¹ Revolt² 
dominating headlines, Mr. Rumsfeld instructed aides to summon military 
analysts to a meeting with him early the next week, records show. When an 
aide urged a short delay to ³give our big guys on the West Coast a little 
more time to buy a ticket and get here,² Mr. Rumsfeld¹s office insisted that 
³the boss² wanted the meeting fast ³for impact on the current story.²

That same day, Pentagon officials helped two Fox analysts, General McInerney 
and General Vallely, write an opinion article for The Wall Street Journal 
defending Mr. Rumsfeld.

³Starting to write it now,² General Vallely wrote to the Pentagon that 
afternoon. ³Any input for the article,² he added a little later, ³will be 
much appreciated.² Mr. Rumsfeld¹s office quickly forwarded talking points 
and statistics to rebut the notion of a spreading revolt.

³Vallely is going to use the numbers,² a Pentagon official reported that 
afternoon.

The standard secrecy notwithstanding, plans for this session leaked, 
producing a front-page story in The Times that Sunday. In damage-control 
mode, Pentagon officials scrambled to present the meeting as routine and 
directed that communications with analysts be kept ³very formal,² records 
show. ³This is very, very sensitive now,² a Pentagon official warned 
subordinates.

On Tuesday, April 18, some 17 analysts assembled at the Pentagon with Mr. 
Rumsfeld and General Pace, then the chairman of the Joint Chiefs.

A transcript of that session, never before disclosed, shows a shared 
determination to marginalize war critics and revive public support for the 
war.

³I¹m an old intel guy,² said one analyst. (The transcript omits speakers¹ 
names.) ³And I can sum all of this up, unfortunately, with one word. That is 
Psyops. Now most people may hear that and they think, ŒOh my God, they¹re 
trying to brainwash.¹ ²

³What are you, some kind of a nut?² Mr. Rumsfeld cut in, drawing laughter. 
³You don¹t believe in the Constitution?²

There was little discussion about the actual criticism pouring forth from 
Mr. Rumsfeld¹s former generals. Analysts argued that opposition to the war 
was rooted in perceptions fed by the news media, not reality. The 
administration¹s overall war strategy, they counseled, was ³brilliant² and 
³very successful.²

³Frankly,² one participant said, ³from a military point of view, the 
penalty, 2,400 brave Americans whom we lost, 3,000 in an hour and 15 
minutes, is relative.²

An analyst said at another point: ³This is a wider war. And whether we have 
democracy in Iraq or not, it doesn¹t mean a tinker¹s damn if we end up with 
the result we want, which is a regime over there that¹s not a threat to us.²

³Yeah,² Mr. Rumsfeld said, taking notes.

But winning or not, they bluntly warned, the administration was in grave 
political danger so long as most Americans viewed Iraq as a lost cause. 
³America hates a loser,² one analyst said.

Much of the session was devoted to ways that Mr. Rumsfeld could reverse the 
³political tide.² One analyst urged Mr. Rumsfeld to ³just crush these 
people,² and assured him that ³most of the gentlemen at the table² would 
enthusiastically support him if he did.

³You are the leader,² the analyst told Mr. Rumsfeld. ³You are our guy.²

At another point, an analyst made a suggestion: ³In one of your speeches you 
ought to say, ŒEverybody stop for a minute and imagine an Iraq ruled by 
Zarqawi.¹ And then you just go down the list and say, ŒAll right, we¹ve got 
oil, money, sovereignty, access to the geographic center of gravity of the 
Middle East, blah, blah, blah.¹ If you can just paint a mental picture for 
Joe America to say, ŒOh my God, I can¹t imagine a world like that.¹ ²

Even as they assured Mr. Rumsfeld that they stood ready to help in this 
public relations offensive, the analysts sought guidance on what they should 
cite as the next ³milestone² that would, as one analyst put it, ³keep the 
American people focused on the idea that we¹re moving forward to a positive 
end.² They placed particular emphasis on the growing confrontation with 
Iran.

³When you said Œlong war,¹ you changed the psyche of the American people to 
expect this to be a generational event,² an analyst said. ³And again, I¹m 
not trying to tell you how to do your job...²

³Get in line,² Mr. Rumsfeld interjected.

The meeting ended and Mr. Rumsfeld, appearing pleased and relaxed, took the 
entire group into a small study and showed off treasured keepsakes from his 
life, several analysts recalled.

Soon after, analysts hit the airwaves. The Omnitec monitoring reports, 
circulated to more than 80 officials, confirmed that analysts repeated many 
of the Pentagon¹s talking points: that Mr. Rumsfeld consulted ³frequently 
and sufficiently² with his generals; that he was not ³overly concerned² with 
the criticisms; that the meeting focused ³on more important topics at hand,² 
including the next milestone in Iraq, the formation of a new government.

Days later, Mr. Rumsfeld wrote a memorandum distilling their collective 
guidance into bullet points. Two were underlined:

³Focus on the Global War on Terror ‹ not simply Iraq. The wider war ‹ the 
long war.²

³Link Iraq to Iran. Iran is the concern. If we fail in Iraq or Afghanistan, 
it will help Iran.²

But if Mr. Rumsfeld found the session instructive, at least one participant, 
General Nash, the ABC analyst, was repulsed.

³I walked away from that session having total disrespect for my fellow 
commentators, with perhaps one or two exceptions,² he said.

View From the Networks

Two weeks ago General Petraeus took time out from testifying before Congress 
about Iraq for a conference call with military analysts.

Mr. Garrett, the Fox analyst and Patton Boggs lobbyist, said he told General 
Petraeus during the call to ³keep up the great work.²

³Hey,² Mr. Garrett said in an interview, ³anything we can do to help.²

For the moment, though, because of heavy election coverage and general war 
fatigue, military analysts are not getting nearly as much TV time, and the 
networks have trimmed their rosters of analysts. The conference call with 
General Petraeus, for example, produced little in the way of immediate 
coverage.

Still, almost weekly the Pentagon continues to conduct briefings with 
selected military analysts. Many analysts said network officials were only 
dimly aware of these interactions. The networks, they said, have little 
grasp of how often they meet with senior officials, or what is discussed.

³I don¹t think NBC was even aware we were participating,² said Rick 
Francona, a longtime military analyst for the network.

Some networks publish biographies on their Web sites that describe their 
analysts¹ military backgrounds and, in some cases, give at least limited 
information about their business ties. But many analysts also said the 
networks asked few questions about their outside business interests, the 
nature of their work or the potential for that work to create conflicts of 
interest. ³None of that ever happened,² said Mr. Allard, an NBC analyst 
until 2006.

³The worst conflict of interest was no interest.²

Mr. Allard and other analysts said their network handlers also raised no 
objections when the Defense Department began paying their commercial airfare 
for Pentagon-sponsored trips to Iraq ‹ a clear ethical violation for most 
news organizations.

CBS News declined to comment on what it knew about its military analysts¹ 
business affiliations or what steps it took to guard against potential 
conflicts.

NBC News also declined to discuss its procedures for hiring and monitoring 
military analysts. The network issued a short statement: ³We have clear 
policies in place to assure that the people who appear on our air have been 
appropriately vetted and that nothing in their profile would lead to even a 
perception of a conflict of interest.²

Jeffrey W. Schneider, a spokesman for ABC, said that while the network¹s 
military consultants were not held to the same ethical rules as its 
full-time journalists, they were expected to keep the network informed about 
any outside business entanglements. ³We make it clear to them we expect them 
to keep us closely apprised,² he said.

A spokeswoman for Fox News said executives ³refused to participate² in this 
article.

CNN requires its military analysts to disclose in writing all outside 
sources of income. But like the other networks, it does not provide its 
military analysts with the kind of written, specific ethical guidelines it 
gives its full-time employees for avoiding real or apparent conflicts of 
interest.

Yet even where controls exist, they have sometimes proven porous.

CNN, for example, said it was unaware for nearly three years that one of its 
main military analysts, General Marks, was deeply involved in the business 
of seeking government contracts, including contracts related to Iraq.

General Marks was hired by CNN in 2004, about the time he took a management 
position at McNeil Technologies, where his job was to pursue military and 
intelligence contracts. As required, General Marks disclosed that he 
received income from McNeil Technologies. But the disclosure form did not 
require him to describe what his job entailed, and CNN acknowledges it 
failed to do additional vetting.

³We did not ask Mr. Marks the follow-up questions we should have,² CNN said 
in a written statement.

In an interview, General Marks said it was no secret at CNN that his job at 
McNeil Technologies was about winning contracts. ³I mean, that¹s what McNeil 
does,² he said.

CNN, however, said it did not know the nature of McNeil¹s military business 
or what General Marks did for the company. If he was bidding on Pentagon 
contracts, CNN said, that should have disqualified him from being a military 
analyst for the network. But in the summer and fall of 2006, even as he was 
regularly asked to comment on conditions in Iraq, General Marks was working 
intensively on bidding for a $4.6 billion contract to provide thousands of 
translators to United States forces in Iraq. In fact, General Marks was made 
president of the McNeil spin-off that won the huge contract in December 
2006.

General Marks said his work on the contract did not affect his commentary on 
CNN. ³I¹ve got zero challenge separating myself from a business interest,² 
he said.

But CNN said it had no idea about his role in the contract until July 2007, 
when it reviewed his most recent disclosure form, submitted months earlier, 
and finally made inquiries about his new job.

³We saw the extent of his dealings and determined at that time we should end 
our relationship with him,² CNN said.