Over at This Modern World, you’ll find a lengthy excerpt of an article from Rolling Stone by James Bamford that goes into great detail about the Bush Administration’s covert propaganda campaign. The article is centered around a story about a former Iraqi civil engineer, Adnan Ihsan Saeed al-Haideri, who desperately wanted to help the U.S. bring down Saddam Hussein. Al-Haideri told the CIA how he “had helped Saddam’s men to secretly bury tons of biological, chemical and nuclear weapons.” He told them this tale while strapped to a lie detector.
There was only one problem: It was all a lie. After a review of the sharp peaks and deep valleys on the polygraph chart, the intelligence officer concluded that al-Haideri had made up the entire story, apparently in the hopes of securing a visa.
The fabrication might have ended there, the tale of another political refugee trying to scheme his way to a better life. But just because the story wasn’t true didn’t mean it couldn’t be put to good use. Al-Haideri, in fact, was the product of a clandestine operation — part espionage, part PR campaign — that had been set up and funded by the CIA and the Pentagon for the express purpose of selling the world a war. And the man who had long been in charge of the marketing was a secretive and mysterious creature of the Washington establishment named John Rendon.
From there, the article goes on for several pages about Rendon’s special skills in “perception management” and his ties to the Bush Administration. It’s something you really ought to read.
The article comes back around to the Administration’s use of al-Haideri’s allegations during the runup to the Iraq War.
…as President Bush was about to argue his case for war before the U.N., the White House had given prominent billing to al-Haideri’s fabricated charges. In a report ironically titled “Iraq: Denial and Deception,” the administration referred to al-Haideri by name and detailed his allegations — even though the CIA had already determined them to be lies. The report was placed on the White House Web site on September 12th, 2002, and remains there today.
(snip)
Finally, in early 2004, more than two years after he made the dramatic allegations to Miller and Moran about Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction, al-Haideri was taken back to Iraq by the CIA’s Iraq Survey Group. On a wide-ranging trip through Baghdad and other key locations, al-Haideri was given the opportunity to point out exactly where Saddam’s stockpiles were hidden, confirming the charges that had helped to start a war.
In the end, he could not identify a single site where illegal weapons were buried.
It’s just so “dishonest and reprehensible” of James Bamford to report this. How unpatriotic of Rolling Stone to publish it. What a “corrupt and shameless” person I am for even telling you about it.
the story was shopped around for awhile. NYtimes wouldn’t publish it due to fact issues in the articles. the enitire article rests on linking a dead reporter who did work a while ago to a company (oh and lots of inuendo)