(from John Doe II's "Crime of Millenium")
On February 20, 2002 the Pentagon announces the existence of the new Office of Strategic Influence.
The role of this office is to plant false stories in the foreign press,
phony e-mails from disguised addresses,
and other covert activities to manipulate public opinion.
The new office proves so controversial that it is declared closed six days later.
http://archives.cnn.com/2002/US/02/19/gen.strategic.influence/ http://archives.cnn.com/2002/US/02/26/defense.office/Defense Secretary Rumsfeld has a very simple opinion:
"I went down that next day and said fine, if you want to savage this thing fine I'll give you the corpse. There's the name. You can have the name, but I'm gonna keep doing every single thing that needs to be done and I have"
http://web.archive.org/web/20021124061953/http://www.defenselink.mil/news/Nov2002/t11212002_t1118sd2.htmlOn August 16, 2002 report from Defense Secretary Rumsfeld's Defense Science Board 2002 is leaked.
(UPI, 9/26/02)
The board "recommends creation of a super-Intelligence Support Activity, an organization it dubs the Proactive, Preemptive Operations Group, (P2OG), to bring together CIA and military covert action, information warfare, intelligence, and cover and deception. Among other things, this body would launch secret operations aimed at 'stimulating reactions' among terrorists and states possessing weapons of mass destruction".
(Los Angeles Times, 10/27/02; Asia Times, 11/5/02)
The Moscow Times comments: "In other words - and let's say this plainly, clearly and soberly, so that no one can mistake the intention of Rumsfeld's plan - the United States government is planning to use 'cover and deception' and secret military operations to provoke murderous terrorist attacks on innocent people."
(Moscow Times, 11/1/02)
In October 2002 the State Department's propaganda office, closed in 1996, is reopened. Called the Counter-Disinformation/Misinformation Team, this office supposedly only aims its propaganda overseas to counter propaganda from other countries.
http://web.archive.org/web/20030812052132/http://abcnews.go.com/wire/Politics/ap20030310_1515.htmlThe Los Angeles Times reports that Defense Secretary Rumsfeld created a new position of deputy undersecretary for "special plans":
"Increasingly, the administration's new policy -- along with the steps senior commanders are taking to implement it -- blurs or even erases the boundaries between factual information and news, on the one hand, and public relations, propaganda and psychological warfare, on the other. And, while the policy ostensibly targets foreign enemies, its most likely victim will be the American electorate".
(Los Angeles Times, 11/24/02)
In 2003 officials in the Pentagon wrote “Information Operations Roadmap". The Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, signed it.
BBC comments:
“Perhaps the most startling aspect of the roadmap is its acknowledgement that information put out as part of the military's psychological operations, or Psyops, is finding its way onto the computer and television screens of ordinary Americans.
"Information intended for foreign audiences, including public diplomacy and Psyops, is increasingly consumed by our domestic audience," (the document) reads.
"Psyops messages will often be replayed by the news media for much larger audiences, including the American public," it goes on.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4655196.stm