Wednesday, November 23, 2005

John Rendon - Bush's master of propaganda

In October 2001, John Rendon was given a secret $16,000,000 contract to target Iraq and other enemies with propaganda. Rendon was closely allied with Ahmed Chalabi, having helped to install him as head of the Iraqi National Congress after which he served as the media advisor to the IND. He had ten years earlier gotten a contract with the CIA to help "create the conditions for the removal of Hussein from power" and had made millions on government contracts after that.

So what?

Consider this from the Rolling Stone Article:
Rendon is one of the most influential of the private contractors in Washington who are increasingly taking over jobs long reserved for highly trained CIA employees. In recent years, spies-for-hire have begun to replace regional desk officers, who control clandestine operations around the world; watch officers at the agency's twenty-four-hour crisis center; analysts, who sift through reams of intelligence data; and even counterintelligence officers in the field, who oversee meetings between agents and their recruited spies. According to one senior administration official involved in intelligence-budget decisions, half of the CIA's work is now performed by private contractors -- people completely unaccountable to Congress. Another senior budget official acknowledges privately that lawmakers have no idea how many rent-a-spies the CIA currently employs -- or how much unchecked power they enjoy.
Just one example. It is against the law for a government agency to present propaganda to the U.S. people. Has Rendon obeyed this law? If not, what can he be charged with? He is not a government employee.

Go read the whole Rolling Stone Article. You will not regret the time.

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