The essence of the Pentagon propaganda aimed at Americans

Glenn Greenwald returns to the story of the corps of retired military individuals who became the Pentagon's special propaganda corps on TV "News."

So the Pentagon would maintain a team of "military analysts" who reliably "carry their water" -- yet who were presented as independent analysts by the television and cable networks. By feeding only those pro-Government sources key information and giving them access -- even before responding to the press -- only those handpicked analysts would be valuable to the networks, and that, in turn, would ensure that only pro-Government sources were heard from. Meanwhile, the "less reliably friendly" ones -- frozen out by the Pentagon -- would be "weeded out" by the networks. The pro-Government military analysts would do what they were told because the Pentagon was "their bread and butter." These Pentagon-controlled analysts were used by the networks not only to comment on military matters -- and to do so almost always unchallenged -- but also even to shape and mold the networks' coverage choices.

Even a casual review of the DoD's documents leaves no doubt that this is exactly how the program worked. The military analysts most commonly used by MSNBC, CNN, Fox, ABC, CBS and NBC routinely received instructions about what to say in their appearances from the Pentagon. As but one extreme though illustrative example, Dan Senor -- Fox News analyst and husband of CNN's Campbell Brown -- would literally ask Di Rita before his television appearances what he should say (7900, 7920-21), and submitted articles to him, such as one he wrote for The Weekly Standard about how great the war effort was going, and Di Rita would give him editing directions, which he obediently followed.

Among the most active analysts in this program were all three of the most commonly used MSNBC commentators -- Gen. Montgomery Meigs, Gen. Wayne Downing, and Col. Ken Allard.

This is clearly not a public information program run by the Pentagon. It consists of developing a channel of propaganda from the Pentagon directly into the Television news organizations, then manipulating the TV organizations so that they became dependent on the propaganda channel in place of TV controlled news reporters.

By doing this the Pentagon could quickly get it's views out to he public and immediately respond to and quash bad news that placed the Pentagon in a bad light.

No wonder the American people are so poorly informed about the invasion and Occupation of Iraq. The news media have been turned into nothing more than a government propaganda channel.