[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 154 (2008), Part 6]
[House]
[Page 8848]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                         PENTAGON SPIN MACHINE

  (Mr. MORAN of Virginia asked and was given permission to address the 
House for 1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. MORAN of Virginia. Mr. Speaker, a report released today by the 
nonprofit research organization Media Matters has found that military 
analysts secretly cultivated by the Pentagon's communications apparatus 
appeared over 4,500 times on major TV and radio networks since 2002 in 
segments covering the Iraq War, Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib and other 
foreign policy and national security issues.
  The New York Times exposed this extensive, coordinated campaign by 
the Pentagon and the Bush administration to influence the commentary of 
what viewers rightfully believed were independent television military 
analysts. It is an unethical, possibly illegal propaganda machine, a 
media Trojan horse designed to shape war coverage from inside the major 
TV and radio networks.
  It was also apparent that the motivation on the part of many was the 
extraordinary access they were granted to the Pentagon for their 
defense contractor employers.
  One particularly disturbing example is when troops in Iraq were dying 
because of inadequate body armor, a senior Pentagon official wrote to 
his colleagues, ``I think our analysts . . . can push back in that 
arena.'' The analysts, of course, were 75 retired military officers.
  This is conduct unbefitting of our military officers and our Nation, 
Mr. Speaker.

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