Rendon Group DOD PR/Paul Moran...Hmmm some picture here, but what?

[tlcandie]

I noted the Rendon Group, INC in the pdf notes related to Wilson and wanted to search it out. Has any of this come to light here in DU before?

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/southnews/message/3501

<snip>
The chosen television outlet was ABC TV in Australia through freelance
cameraman and journalist Paul Moran. Moran was later killed in Iraq
while working for the ABC.

Now it has been revealed that Moran worked extensively for the INC and
for a company (Rendon Group, INC.)working for the American intelligence employed to spread
anti-Saddam propaganda and al Haideri's story certainly hit that mark.
<snip>

<snip>
The man who helped orchestrate publicity for al-Haideri was Zaab
Sethna, media spokesman for the INC. Sethna spent more than a decade
working in and around Iraq. Much of it with his Australian mate Paul Moran.

After the INC helped al Haideri escape from Iraq, it was Paul Moran who
was called in to do the one television interview that would go around
the world.
<snip>

<snip>
15 months after Moran broke the al-Haideri story, he was killed here
at Sulymania in Iraq, just near the Iranian border.

After his death, key information was revealed about some of his
connections.
<snip>

<snip>
Among the faces in the Adelaide crowd that day, was a shadowy figure
called JOHN RENDON. One of Washington's most powerful and influential
spin doctors engaged by the Pentagon and the CIA to disseminate
anti-Saddam propaganda. He'd found time at the height of the Iraqi
campaign to attend a funeral half a world away.
<snip>

Lots more!!

Also, went to the Rendon Group, INC. site and noted that all senior members were democrats.... hmmmmm

What to make of all this?

http://www.rendon.com/rendon/layout7/bio.htm

[DUreader]

1. I'd like to know too

[tlcandie]

2. Maybe if someone else posted this info who gets lots of hits ..

someone with great investigative and intellectual deduction could give us a clearer picture regarding this since I don't draw many to check my posts.

[Monkey see Monkey Do]

3. Rendon Group created the INC (Chalabi's exile group)

Which is alleged to be the source for many of the defectors that made stuff up about the state of Iraq's WMD. (see the Judith Miller story for an example :) )

The writers who've been onto the Rendon group (& many other PR agencies) are John Stauber & Sheldon Rampton -- they run a site called www.prwatch.org which is excellent & they have authored 4 books on PR. The most recent "Weapons of Mass Deception" is purely on the current Iraq war.

On this blog -- scroll down to Sept 7th for an email from Stauber about the Paul Moran story.

http://www.back-to-iraq.com/

****

btw -- having read the PDF's you're referring to, I shuddered at the comments attributed to John Rendon about the problem with the news desks providing context for the embedded reports, basically advocating a constant stream of soldiers with no explanation as to how the overall campaign is going.

[bobthedrummer]

4. The Rendon Group was hired on by the short-lived Office of Strategic

Influence/OSI--they're probably called something else now.

[DUreader]

5. they morphed into OSP(Office of Special Plans)

[lostnfound]

6. See book 'Weapons of Mass Deception' or article linked below

I'd heard about the Rendon Group and Paul Moran on a segment of Democracy Now! back in August.http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=03/08/08/1510227&mode=thread&tid=25
The segment had one of the authors (John Stauber or Sheldon Rampton) called Weapons of Mass Deception: The Uses of Propaganda in Bush’s War on Iraq.

He described how the Rendon Group decided to paint Chalabi as 'the Iraqi George Washington' and came up with the name 'Iraqi National Congress', and how major PR firms did multi-million dollar jobs to brighten up the reputation of the Saudis after 9-11 by putting ads on US TV and creating gront groups like Alliance for Peace.

Here's an In These Times article that summarizes much of the book: http://inthesetimes.com/comments.php?id=299_0_1_0_M and an excerpt:

“Did you ever stop to wonder,” Rendon asked, “how the people of Kuwait City, after being held hostage for seven long and painful months, were able to get hand-held American, and for that matter, the flags of other coalition countries?” He paused for effect. “Well, you now know the answer. That was one of my jobs then.”