Webb Urges Halt To U.S. Propaganda In Iraq

Saying the United States should not be spending hundred of millions to "… propagandize the Iraqi people," Senator Jim Webb (D-VA) today sent a letter asking Secretary of Defense Robert Gates to halt contracts that would pay civilian defense contractors $300 million to produce pro-American news stories, entertainment programs and public service advertisements inside Iraq.

"At a time when this country is facing such a grave economic crisis, and at a time when the government of Iraq now shows at least a $79 billion surplus from recent oil revenues, it makes little sense for the Department of Defense to be spending hundreds of millions of dollars to propagandize the Iraqi people," said Webb, adding that Iraq is at this point "capable, both politically and financially, of communicating with its own people ... without being accused by adversaries of being a foreign government that is fulminating internal conditions through propaganda."

Webb has previously raised the issue to both Gates and Mike Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, about the Department of Defense (DoD) using "general appropriations accounts" for such efforts because they avoid routine congressional scrutiny and award lucrative contracts to companies performing quasi-military functions such as Blackwater. More