Pentagon contractor pays Sunni religious
scholars for propaganda
Yahoo News/AFP
January 2, 2006
NEW YORK, United States (AFP) - The same Pentagon contractor that paid Iraqi
newspapers to print positive articles written by US soldiers has also been
paying Sunni religious scholars in Iraq for assistance with propaganda work,
The New York Times reports.
In its Monday edition, the paper said that the Lincoln Group, a
Washington-based public relations firm, was told early in 2005 by the Pentagon
"to identify religious leaders who could help produce messages that would
persuade Sunnis in violence-ridden Anbar Province to participate in national
elections and reject the insurgency," citing an unidentified former
employee.
The company since "has retained three or four Sunni religious scholars to
offer advice and write reports for military commanders on the content of
propaganda campaigns," the report cited the former employee as saying.
"But documents and Lincoln executives say the company's ties to religious
leaders and dozens of other prominent Iraqis is aimed also at enabling it to
exercise influence in Iraqi communities on behalf of clients, including the
military," the Times reported.
"We do reach out to clerics," Paige Craig, a Lincoln executive vice
president, was quoted as saying in an interview. "We meet with local government
officials and with local businessmen. We need to have relationships that are
broad enough and deep enough that we can touch all the various aspects of
society." He declined to discuss specific projects the company has with the
military or commercial clients.
"We have on staff people who are experts in religious and cultural matters,"
Craig said. "We meet with a wide variety of people to get their input. Most of
the people we meet with overseas don't want or need compensation, they want a
dialogue."
According to the Times, internal financial records show that Lincoln spent
about 144,000 dollars on the program from May to September, though it was not
clear "how much of this money, if any, went to the religious scholars, whose
identities could not be learned."
Minority Sunnis form the core of the insurgency in Iraq.
|