Democrats on the U.S. House Appropriations Committee have produced a web page titled "Caught on Film: The Bush Credibility Gap," which contrasts statements by George W. Bush at various photo ops around the country with his actual deeds.

"On February 24, Newsweek broke what may be the biggest story of the Iraq crisis," FAIR writes. "In a revelation that 'raises questions about whether the WMD [weapons of mass destruction] stockpiles attributed to Iraq still exist,' the magazine's issue dated March 3 reported that the Iraqi weapons chief who defected from the regime in 1995 told U.N. inspectors that Iraq had destroyed its entire stockpile of chemical and biological weapons and banned missiles, as Iraq claims." The CIA denied the Newsweek story. FAIR reports a copy of the complete transcript of Gen. Hussein Kamel's debriefing by International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the U.N. inspections team known as UNSCOM was obtained by Glen Rangwala, "the Cambridge University analyst who in early February revealed that Tony Blair's 'intelligence dossier' was plagiarized from a student thesis."

PR Watch has reported previously on the dietary supplement industry's successful campaign to evade federal safety regulations. Now O'Dywer's PR Daily reports that the Ephedra Education Council (EEC), a PR front created by the PR firm of Aker Partners, is "handling crisis PR to counter a media firestorm following the death of Baltimore Orioles pitcher Steve Bechler." A coroner's report suggested that Bechler's death could be linked to ephedra, and the Food and Drug Administration has reports of at least 100 deaths and thousands of adverse reactions linked to the supplement. The EEC has been trying to suppress or attack scientific studies critical of ephedra, including a study last year that found it was "by far the most dangerous herbal product on the market."

The burgeoning US anti-war movement is showing a sophistication for grassroots lobbying normally only used by major corporate PR efforts. Today, for instance, hundreds of thousands of US citizens are participating in "a massive march on Washington without leaving your living room. The Virtual March on Washington is a first-of-its-kind campaign from the Win Without War coalition. Working together, we will direct a steady stream of phone calls -- about one per minute, all day -- to every Senate office in the country, while at the same time delivering a constant stream of e-mails and faxes. Our message: Don't Attack Iraq. To register to send a free fax and make phone calls to Senate offices and the White House, visit: MoveOn.org"

"Less than a week before a Town Meeting Day vote on the future of Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant, a David-and-Goliath-style public relations war is heating up between the multibillion dollar corporation that owns the plant and a small group of volunteers who want the plant closed in 2012," writes Eesha Williams. "Nuclear Free Vermont, the citizens' group, is spending about $2,000 to distribute 'Vote Yes' yard signs to supporters, mail literature, and possibly air a handful of radio ads. Meanwhile, the Entergy-funded Coalition Against Shutting Down Vermont's Electricity Options is in the midst of a $200,000 public relations blitz that includes mass-mailings, newspaper ads, and 'Vote No' radio ads featuring the voice of a former Vermont governor."

Here's a story that hasn't gotten covered in the U.S. press: As the USA prepares for a war against Iraq, it is being sued by Iran for its previous close relationship to Saddam Hussein. At the UN's International Court of Justice (ICJ), Teheran is accusing the United States of delivering dangerous chemicals and deadly viruses to Baghdad during the 1980s. Reports on the case have appeared in countries including Germany, England, Pakistan and Malaysia. In the United States, Associated Press writer Anthony Deutsch filed a report on the case, but it does not seem to have been picked up by any U.S. newspapers. However, the National Security Archive, a nonprofit research institute on international affairs, has published a series of declassified U.S. documents detailing the U.S. embrace of Saddam Hussein in the early 1980s, including a photo of Donald Rumsfeld personally shaking Hussein's hand.

"If war again comes to Iraq, depleted uranium munitions will be a mainstay of the American arsenal. For years, the Pentagon has discounted reports that the shells and bullets, made of solid nuclear-waste byproduct and used for the first time on a large scale in the Iraq war, bore calamity. ... 'There just isn't any scientific foundation to draw a connection between exposure and the incidents of leukemia, other cancers or birth defects,' said Michael Kilpatrick, deputy director of deployment health support at the Pentagon. ... Last month, the Bush administration, intent on launching those munitions again if war breaks out, accused Iraq of tricking the media into reporting on false links to depleted uranium arms and cancer deaths. ... Dr. Doug Rokke...worked...securing depleted uranium depots for the army. Today, Rokke ... has become an opponent of depleted uranium arms . All of the soldiers assigned to the cleanup in Iraq have suffered chronic health problems, he said. ... 'When you go to war, you go to kill. The problem with (depleted uranium),' he said, 'is that it keeps on killing.' "

MSNBC has abruptly cancelled the Phil Donahue show. To fill his slot, the network is expanding the news show that precedes him on the air, "Countdown: Iraq." Although the network cites poor ratings as the reason for the cancellation, the New York Times reports that Donahue "was actually attracting more viewers than any other program on MSNBC, even the channel's signature prime-time program 'Hardball with Chris Matthews.'" According to an internal NBC report, however, Donahue was axed because he presented a "difficult public face for NBC in a time of war. ... He seems to delight in presenting guests who are anti-war, anti-Bush and skeptical of the administration's motives." The report went on to outline a possible nightmare scenario where the show becomes "a home for the liberal antiwar agenda at the same time that our competitors are waving the flag at every opportunity." A source close to Donahue says, "It's not a coincidence that this decision comes the same week that MSNBC announces it's hired Dick Armey as a commentator and has both Jesse Ventura and Michael Savage joining the network as hosts. They're scared, and they decided to take the coward's road and slant towards the conservative crowd that watches Fox News."

"After the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, listeners denounced many radio stations for playing songs insensitive to a nation in mourning. Now, program directors are planning to adjust their playlists if the United States goes to war with Iraq. Expect to hear more patriotic tunes, and songs that appear right for the moment. ... Music stations will also increase their news reports if war breaks out. Because radio has become so segmented in the last 15 years, news had vanished from many music stations. But since Sept. 11, stations have added feeds at the top of every hour. 'We're certainly stepping up our news coverage,' said Gabe Hobbs, vice president of news for Clear Channel Radio, part of Clear Channel Communications, which owns 1,200 stations. 'We have all sorts of plans and they vary from market-to-market. But overall, we're prepared to offer news twice an hour on our music stations.' "

"The political battle over the Bush administration's planned war in Iraq is filtering down to impact the U.S. media and advertising industry. A growing number of groups opposed to the war allege cable networks are censoring citizens' political views by refusing to accept placements of their anti-war TV ads. Some peace groups are thwarting the networks' rejection by buying local time in major cities for the same anti-war ads. One set of spots seen last week in Washington feature Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, co-founders of Ben and Jerry's ice cream, and were produced for TrueMajority.org by Too Much Media. Mr. Cohen, who has been active in efforts by True Majority and the Business Leaders for Sensible Priorities, expressed dismay last week that CNN would not allow True Majority to buy time on Larry King Live. He said one spot that was rejected by CNN features actress Susan Sarandon asking former U.S. Iraq ambassador Ed Peck, 'Before our kids start coming home from Iraq in body bags and women and children start dying in Baghdad, I need to know what did Iraq do to us?' "

"Did the media stumble on Iraq, downplaying opposition to war with Saddam Hussein until the USA's recent confrontation with Germany and France in the United Nations and worldwide protests gave them no choice?" asks Peter Johnson. New York Times columnist Paul Krugman writes, "For months both major U.S. cable news networks have acted as if the decision to invade Iraq has already been made, and have in effect seen it as their job to prepare the American public for the coming war."

"The messages from U.S. embassies around the globe have become urgent and disturbing," reports the Washington Post. "Many people in the world increasingly think President Bush is a greater threat to world peace than Iraqi President Saddam Hussein."

Within an hour of posting a press release headlined "Children, Pregnant Women Need Immediate Protection From DEHP, Says Sweeping New European Union Proposal" on its website, the public interest group Health Care Without Harm received a call from PR Goliath Fleishman-Hillard asking them to change the release. "They took issue with our headline, arguing that a proposal to ban the toxic chemical DEHP from various consumer products in the European Union is 'a sweeping proposal to the EU' rather than a 'sweeping EU proposal,'" HCWH's Stacy Malkan wrote PR Watch. "But the proposal was actually submitted on behalf of the EU, so we're right and it seems that all they have to argue about is a preposition. It felt kind of creepy to realize that F-H saw our press release before any reporters and probably before any of our 400 member organizations. But to me this also seems like a last-ditch industry attempt to spin the unspinnable. As the new EU proposal points out, there's enough evidence about the risks of DEHP to warrant immediate action to protect kids, women of childbearing age, and other people," Malkan wrote.

The threat of war in Iraq is driving increasing numbers of Americans to international news websites in search of the broader picture. Traffic to the UK's biggest news sites, BBC News Online and Guardian Unlimited, has increased dramatically over the past year, as has traffic to sites such as World News Network, German Times, Israel's Ha'aretz Daily, and alternative news sites like Urban75.com and YearZero. "We have noticed an upsurge in traffic from America, primarily because we are receiving more e-mails from US visitors thanking us for reporting on worldwide news in a way that is unavailable in the US media," said Jon Dennis, deputy news editor of the Guardian Unlimited web site. The American public is apparently turning away from the mostly US-centric American media in search of unbiased reporting and other points of views. According to the statistics, much of the US media's reaction to France and Germany's intransigence on the Iraqi war issue has verged on the xenophobic, even in the so-called "respectable" press. "American visitors are telling us they are unable to find the breadth of opinion we have on our website anywhere else because we report across the political spectrum rather than from just one perspective," Dennis said.

"Shia Muslims of southern Iraq will mount an uprising against Saddam Hussein as soon as US and British troops invade," reports Patrick Cockburn. "A rebellion by the Shia would complicate plans by the US for an orderly occupation of Iraq. Earlier in the month, American officials angered representatives of the Iraqi opposition, much of which is Shia and Kurdish, at a meeting in Ankara, Turkey by revealing that America planned a military government for Iraq but would keep in place most of the Sunni establishment that had served President Hussein. ... The problem for the US is much the same as it was in 1991 when President Saddam had been defeated in Kuwait and had lost 14 out of Iraq's 18 provinces to Shia and Kurdish rebels. While the US wanted regime change and the Iraqi leader toppled, it did not want revolutionary change. But if democracy was introduced in Iraq, revolutionary change would be inevitable because Shia and Kurds make up three-quarters of the Iraqi population."

PR Watch has previously written about the origins of the Iraqi National Congress (INC) as a PR front group created by the Rendon Group, which has nevertheless become the Bush administration's preferred source for "intelligence" about Iraq. Now an internal fight is bubbling over INC's plan to actually become the government of Iraq after a U.S. invasion. The INC's Ahmad Chalabi wants to "declare a provisional government when the war starts," a plan that has "alienated some of Mr Chalabi's most enthusiastic backers in the Pentagon and in Congress, who fear the announcement of a provisional government made up of exiles would split anti-Saddam sentiment inside Iraq." Other opponents of Saddam Hussein, such as Iraqi political exile Kamil Mahdi, warn that "the objective of the US is to have regime change without the people of Iraq. ... The prevalent Iraqi opinion is that a US attack on Iraq would be a disaster, not a liberation."

The Center for Consumer Freedom, a front group for the restaurant, alcohol and tobacco industries, has been forced to give up the domain names of two web sites used to attack the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI), in what CSPI called an "Orwellian" effort to create confusion among Internet users looking for CSPI's websites. CCF, part of a "shadowy trio of tax-exempt front groups run by Washington lobbyist Richard Berman" has been involved in several other failed attempts to impersonate web sites owned by health, consumer and enviromental groups.

A new survey by Editor & Publisher magazine shows that "the growing rift at the United Nations and massive antiwar demonstrations around the globe appear to have had an impact. E&P now finds that a majority of top papers oppose any attack on Iraq without broad international support." Previous surveys in January also opposed President Bush's desire for a quick invasion, but pro-war editorials surged immediately following Colin Powell's presentation to the U.N. in early February. Following the protests, however, newspapers have taken a more cautious position: "Of the 37 papers publishing editorials on Iraq between Feb 15. and Feb. 19, the hawks numbered 15 and doves 9, while the cautious camp became solidly internationalist. Some that once reluctantly accepted a quick war for different reasons are now calling for any invasion to be backed by a stronger world coalition or with the full support of the United Nations Security Council -- a noteworthy condition at a time when the U.N. appears deeply fractured. Thirteen papers now occupy this middle ground, meaning that almost two-third's of the total sample oppose any war for the time being."

As the nation marches toward war in the Middle East, millions of Americans believe in Biblical prophecies of Armageddon that predict war and mass slaughters of Jews and Muslims. "Genocide, in short, becomes the ultimate means of prophetic fulfillment," writes historian Paul Boyer. "Without close attention to the prophetic scenario embraced by millions of American citizens, the current political climate in the United States cannot be fully understood. ... [W]hen our born-again president describes the nation's foreign-policy objective in theological terms as a global struggle against 'evildoers,' and when, in his recent State of the Union address, he casts Saddam Hussein as a demonic, quasi-supernatural figure who could unleash 'a day of horror like none we have ever known,' he is not only playing upon our still-raw memories of 9/11. He is also invoking a powerful and ancient apocalyptic vocabulary that for millions of prophecy believers conveys a specific and thrilling message of an approaching end - not just of Saddam, but of human history as we know it."

At a Christian Coalition symposium on Feb. 15, Don Feder, a syndicated columnist for The Boston Herald for 19 years, and Daniel Pipes, New York Post columnist and director of the right-wing Middle East Forum, agreed that militant Islamists are the real enemies of the U.S., reports O'Dwyer's PR Daily. Feder "railed against U.S. leaders who insist Islam is a religion of tolerance and compassion and charity," O'Dwyer's writes. "Islam is not a religion of peace but has lent itself well over its 1,400 year history to fanaticism, terrorism, mass murder, oppression and conversion by the sword, according to Feder."

"Ruder Finn designed the Dept. of Homeland Security's www.ready.gov website and brochure that provides tips on how to prepare against a biological, radiation or nuclear attack," O'Dwyer's PR Daily reports. "Ruder Finn wants to be 'clear and accurate' in giving tips to cope with terror attacks. 'We worked with the Ad Council on its Smokey the Bear campaign, and AC staffers recommended us for the Homeland Security work,' said [Ruder Finn senior VP Scott] Schneider. The AC hopes to line up $50 million in space for the 'Get Ready Now' ad spots.' ... Schneider said RF's goal was to compile information for the campaign that was as 'clear and accurate' as possible and which could be easily understood by all Americans."

As in the United States, the tobacco industry has been using hotels and restaurants to front for its interests in Canada. "One of the key tools cigarette manufacturers used in this effort was the Courtesy of Choice campaign, a worldwide public-relations effort that grew out of a partnership between Philip Morris's Accommodation Program and the International Hotel Association," writes David Rodenhiser. "Courtesy of Choice aimed to head off government legislation by championing non-smoking sections and ventilation systems as a better solution. The campaign was backed by millions of dollars in tobacco blood money. ... Cigarette manufacturers are fighting a desperate and cynical battle to keep smoking from being snuffed out as socially unacceptable. For them, every government restriction is ground lost. So they've enlisted hospitality industry lobby groups as their field marshals, who in turn have used the owners of bars, restaurants and inns as their foot soldiers."

The Gallagher Group, headed by Republican policy analyst Jamie Gallagher, has signed a $300,000, one-year deal to assist Qorvis Communications in its PR work for the kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Gallagher will provide "public policy advice, assistance in writing briefing papers and conduct meetings with Congressional and White House staff members on behalf of Saudi Arabia." The February O'Dwyer's PR Services Report (print version) has a lengthy piece about Qorvis's PR work for the Saudi Kingdom, for which it received "a staggering $14.6 million during its latest six-month federal reporting period." Although Saudi Arabia is formally an ally in the Bush Administration's "war on terrorism," some of its most scathing critics have been conservatives like Wall Street Journal editorialist William McGurn and Republican Congressman Dan Burton, who says the "activities of such 'propagandists'" should be "subject to the 'spotlight of pitiless publicity' so that the American people may be fully informed of the identity of the propagandists and the nature of the activities they undertake on behalf of their foreign masters."

Where's the money in Argentina? What does U.S. oil cost in Colombia? The Resource Center of the Americas has prepared a list of 10 "important stories about Latin America that major news media distorted or ignored in 2002."

"You have got to admit that Rupert Murdoch is one canny press tycoon because he has an unerring ability to choose editors across the world who think just like him," writes Roy Greenslade. "How else can we explain the extraordinary unity of thought in his newspaper empire about the need to make war on Iraq?" Murdoch publishes 40 million papers a week and dominates the newspaper markets in Britain, Australia and New Zealand, and none "has dared to croon the anti-war tune. Their master's voice has never been questioned." In France, Murdoch's paper distributed a story calling French President Jacques Chirac a "worm." In the U.S., his New York Post has called France and Germany an "axis of weasel" for refusing to support Bush's war plans, and recently published a cover photo with the heads of weasels superimposed over the faces of French and Germany ministers at the U.N.

"When Allied forces were last on their way to the Gulf in 1991, the Internet was little more than a gaggle of bearded academics swapping information on their latest computer programs," reports Owen Gibson. Today, however, the web "is opening up a world of different perspectives and viewpoints. ... Sites such as Afghanistan Online and Islamic Gateway saw a thousandfold increase in their traffic while web users also flocked to sites such as Stopwar.org.uk and Amnesty International. And just last week, interested parties were able to flick from the French press to the US tabloids and back again to see how differing views on the war were taking shape.

The latest plan from U.S. State Department propagandist Charlotte Beers is a "consumer lifestyle" magazine to be published in Arabic. The magazine "will avoid politics and instead focus on topics of common interest to American and Arab cultures, including education, careers, family, technology, music and health. ... The magazine, according to a State Department official, is meant to foster dialogue with young Arabs and dispel some of the 'misperceptions' they may have about the United States. Other Beers efforts "have included television and print advertisements, a new Arabic language television network, and Radio Sawa, an Arabic-language pop music station that includes newscasts with an American perspective."

More than 11 million people worldwide turned out to demonstrate against a war with Iraq, with demonstrations in Eastern and Western Europe, Oceania and Latin America.

Terrorists and the U.S. government are both using the media to achieve propaganda goals, according to Hafez Al Mirazi, bureau chief of the Al-Jazeera satellite TV network. "If CNN or Fox or others are not going to have breaking news flashing on their screens if Palestinians are killed, but only if Israelis are killed, then [terrorists] will go out and kill an Israeli," he said. Speaking at the National Press Club, Al Mirazi joined a panel that included foreign policy analyst Lawrence Korb and Jerrold Post, director of the Political Psychology Program at George Washington University, who also stressed the symbiotic relationship between terrorism and the media. "If a terrorist act occurs, and it isn't reported, is it a terrorist act?" asked Post, adding that sophisticated terrorist groups actually have a VP of media relations and time their attacks to attract maximum media attention. "In effect, the media is serving as an uncritical megaphone for the terrorists," he said.

"The White House recently cancelled its symposium, Poetry and the American Voice, due to the first lady's anxiety that it was shaping into an anti-war forum," Rebecca Okrent writes for TomPaine.com. "Spokesperson Noelia Rodriguez explained that, 'While Mrs. Bush respects the right of all Americans to express their opinions, she, too, has opinions and believes it would be inappropriate to turn a literary event into a political forum.' In other words if you have a dissenting opinion, you can't come to the party." Unimpressed by the First Lady's fair-weather love of literature, Poets Against the War organized read-ins for peace across the country.

One sequel that's not receiving much media attention is the "Domestic Security Enhancement Act of 2003," a follow up to the "USA Patriot Act of 2001." The Center for Public Integrity obtained a copy of the draft legislation that had been secretly prepared by the Justice Department. "This proposed law would give the government breathtaking new powers to further increase domestic intelligence-gathering, surveillance and law enforcement prerogatives, and simultaneously decrease judicial review and public access to information," writes the Center, who has posted the document on their website. "Despite the draft legislation's authoritarian provisions -- including one that would empower the government to strip Americans of their citizenship if they participate in the lawful activities of any group that the attorney general labels 'terrorist' -- mainstream U.S. media have responded with only a handful of news stories," Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting writes.

As an employee of the Hill & Knowlton PR firm, Lauri Fitz-Pegado helped coach Nayirah, the 15-year-old daughter of Kuwait's ambassadors whose false testimony about Iraqi atrocities helped build public suport for the first U.S. war in the Persian Gulf. Participating in one of the most scandalous PR scams of the 1990s hasn't hurt her career, though. After Operation Desert Storm, she went to work for Iridium LLC, a satellite phone company that went bankrupt a few years later. She now owns her own PR firm, with clients including the government of Egypt, the Pan African New Agency Press and the American Business Women's Alliance. She's also available as a public speaker through Podium Prose, a speakers' bureau with ties to Monsanto and the libertarian Cato Institute.

"Henkel Consumer Adhesives is working with retailers to ensure there is a plentiful supply of duct tape on their shelves, according to its website," O'Dwyer's PR Daily writes. "The move follows Dept. of Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge's recommendation that Americans stock up on duct tape so they can seal their windows in the event of a biological attack. Cleveland-based Liggett-Stashower PR is pitching the story to national media. ... Ridge's duct tape plug has been a PR bonanza for HCA, which sells Americans more than 1.5 billion linear feet of Duck Tape brand duct tape each year."

The United for Peace and Justice coalition has secured a rally location for the New York city anti-war protest on February 15, announcing that "this massive, peaceful demonstration to stop the Iraq war will go forward no matter what. But in an outrageous attack on our civil liberties, Federal Judge Barbara Jones ruled ... that we may only hold a stationary rally. ... This fight is about far more than one protest march; it's about how much political space for dissent there will be in this country for the foreseeable future. We are appalled by this attack on our basic First Amendment rights, and we will continue to fight for the right to march. Our attorneys from the New York Civil Liberties Union have filed an appeal of Judge Jones' decision."

The White House is using Osama bin Laden's latest message to sell an attack on Iraq . Maureen Dowd notes that "the president and his secretary of state had been huffing and puffing to prove a link between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda. ... And then who but Osama himself should pop up on an audio tape, calling on Muslims to fight the U.S. if the 'infidels' attack 'our brothers in Iraq.' Osama's disdain for Saddam still gleamed through. ... Still, the administration pounced on the tape... Mr. Powell was so eager to publicize Osama's statements that he broke the news himself... In the past, Condi Rice has implored the networks not to broadcast the tapes outright, fearing he might be activating sleeper cells in code. But this time the administration flacked the tape. ... So the Bushies no longer care if Osama sends a coded message to his thugs as long as he stays on message for the White House? To get Saddam, the Bush administration is even willing to remind the American public that it failed to get bin Laden. Its fixation on Saddam seems to have blinded it to the possibility that Osama might be perversely encouraging America in this war."

"In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defence of the indefensible. ... Thus political language has to consist largely of euphemism, question-begging and sheer cloudy vagueness, " George Orwell wrote fifty-five years ago in his essay "Politics and the English Language." In this month's Ecologist, Paul Kingsnorth points out the relevance of Orwell's words today. "An entire political culture has been built on one delightfully simple premise: to get away with doing something downright evil, it's not necessary to change your behaviour, it's just necessary to change the language you use to describe it," Kingsnorth writes. He gives the example of the Bush administration phrase "pre-emptive defence." According to Kingsnorth, this means "attacking anyone we want to and justifying it by saying that they might attack us one day."

"President George W. Bush and his foreign-policy team have systematically and knowingly deceived the American people in order to gain support for an unprovoked attack on Iraq," writes writer and college communications instructor Dennis Hans, who tallies 15 "techniques of deceit" that Bush has used "to deceive the very people most inclined to trust him."

As the so-called general strike against Venezuelean President Hugo Chavez comes to an end, Venezuelan television will begin broadcasting advertising again. For the two months of the strike, "the only commercials on Venezuelan TV were the opposition's relentless barrage of powerful and often witty anti-Chavez spots," Advertising Age reports. Fifteen Venezuelan ad agencies worked together to make over 200 commercials, "although most shops and clients were closed until Feb. 3 in what one agency executive called a 'collective personal decision' to support the strike," Advertising Age writes.

AARP, the huge non-profit membership and business organization that bills itself as the senior lobby is now headed by corporate PR veteran Bill Novelli. (Novelli founded one of the world's largest PR firms representing agribusiness, chemical and drug interests, Porter Novelli, leaving it in 1990.) The latest issue of the AARP Bulletin examines some major drug industry front groups: United Seniors Association, the Seniors Coalition and the 60 Plus Association. "Three nonprofit organizations that claim to speak for older Americans are in fact heavily bankrolled by the pharmaceutical industry, an examination of tax records by the AARP Bulletin shows. United Seniors Association, for example, got more than a third of its funds in 2001 from drug-industry sources. The big donors included Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA), the industry's trade association; Citizens for Better Medicare, a PhRMA-funded nonprofit group; and Pfizer Inc. Total industry contributions: at least $3.1 million."

"Tony Blair and George Bush are encountering an unexpected obstacle in their campaign for war against Iraq - their own intelligence agencies," reports Raymond Whitaker. "Britain and America's spies believe that they are being politicized: that the intelligence they provide is being selectively applied to lead to the opposite conclusion from the one they have drawn, which is that Iraq is much less of a threat than their political masters claim." CIA analysts actually believe that the likelihood of Saddam Hussein using weapons of mass destruction is "very low" for the "foreseeable future." The British spy agency MI6 didn't write England's recent dossier on Iraq, which was actually cobbled together by junior aides to Alastair Campbell, Tony Blair's head spin doctor, using sources plagiarized from the Internet. The dossier "was clearly prepared by someone in Downing Street and it's obviously part of the prime minister's propaganda campaign," said Charles Heyman, editor of Jane's World Armies. "The intelligence services were not involved -- I've had two people phoning me today to say, 'Look, we had nothing to with it.'" In fact, a leaked report from British intelligence contradicts the government's official position, saying there "are no current links between the Iraqi regime and the al-Qaeda network."

"If Colin Powell were to visit the shabby military compound at the foot of a large snow-covered mountain, he might be in for an unpleasant surprise," reports Luke Harding. "The US Secretary of State last week confidently described the compound in north-eastern Iraq - run by an Islamic terrorist group Ansar al-Islam - as a 'terrorist chemicals and poisons factory.' Yesterday, however, it emerged that the terrorist factory was nothing of the kind - more a dilapidated collection of concrete outbuildings at the foot of a grassy sloping hill. Behind the barbed wire, and a courtyard strewn with broken rocket parts, are a few empty concrete houses. There is a bakery. There is no sign of chemical weapons anywhere - only the smell of paraffin and vegetable ghee used for cooking." Fearing an American military strike, "The people of the town of Khurmal, about five kilometres away to the west are particularly anxious since Mr. Powell gave their town's name to the alleged chemical weapons site."

In New York the coalition United for Peace & Justice is in court today suing the city over its refusal to provide a permit for a non-violent peace march February 15th. Newsday noted yesterday that "the lawsuit ... sought a declaration from the court that the city's action violated the First Amendment and for an order permitting a parade of between 50,000 and 100,000 people. The Feb. 15 event would begin across from the United Nations and proceed to Central Park for a rally. 'When we're in times of crisis, it's all the more important that we zealously safeguard our rights, and there's nothing more basic than the right to march, to protest,' said Donna Lieberman, executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, which is representing the groups. ... Chris Dunn, a lawyer with the New York Civil Liberties Union, said that when the sponsor of the demonstration, United for Peace and Justice, applied for a police permit last month, it was turned down because of concerns cited about congestion.' "

Since September 11, a number of pundits have tried to demonize dissent by equating it with support for terrorism. "But none has gone so far as to suggest an actual prosecution for treason simply for voicing one's political views - until now," writes Brendan Nyhan. In a February 6 editorial, the New York Sun begins by praising the New York City government for "doing the people of New York and the people of Iraq a great service by delaying and obstructing the anti-war protest planned for February 15. The longer they delay in granting the protesters a permit, the less time the organizers have to get their turnout organized, and the smaller the crowd is likely to be." The Sun goes on to suggest that protesters "look at Article III" of the U.S. Constitution, which provides a legal definition of treason. How is the protest in any way relevant to treason? According to the Sun's pseudo-logic, "There can be no question at this point that Saddam Hussein is an enemy of America... And there is no reason to doubt that the 'anti-war' protesters -- we prefer to call them protesters against freeing Iraq -- are giving, at the very least, comfort to Saddam Hussein."

"Downing Street was last night plunged into acute international embarrassment after it emerged that large parts of the British government's latest dossier on Iraq - allegedly based on 'intelligence material' - were taken from published academic articles, some of them several years old," the Guardian writes. "[O]n Channel 4 News last night it was revealed that four of the report's 19 pages had been copied - with only minor editing and a few insertions - from the internet version of an article by Ibrahim al-Marashi which appeared in the Middle East Review of International Affairs last September." US Secretary of State Colin Powell praised the dossier during his speech to the UN Security Council on Wednesday. "I would call my colleagues' attention to the fine paper that the United Kingdom distributed... which describes in exquisite detail Iraqi deception activities," Powell said.

The Wisconsin State Journal advocates a US attack on Iraq, but WSJ columnist George Hesselberg remembers 'Nayirah.' He recently wrote a column suggesting "perhaps we should question some of the evidence being gathered to justify an invasion of Iraq. The column was not appreciated by several readers, including ... Teddy Fedkenheuer, of Baraboo: 'To either accuse or blame an American President of lying to the American people ... is un-American. ... You are also implying that his stand on Iraq is also 'smoke and mirrors.' I find that offensive.' ... It might be wise, at this time, to refer to "Nayirah," a 15-year-old Kuwaiti girl who shocked Congress with her testimony in October 1990, when she told of invading Iraqi soldiers throwing babies from incubators onto the cold hospital floor to die. Her testimony was a lie. She was part of an $11.5 million public relations campaign by the Hill and Knowlton, a well-known public relations company, to build backing for a war. The money came from the Kuwaiti government, laundered through Citizens for a Free Kuwait. The public relations campaign included lots of phony evidence. ... 'Nayirah,' it was revealed more than a year later, 'was not a simple hospital worker, but the daughter of Kuwait's ambassador to the U.S.' And that's why our hand-wringing ilk question everything."

According to a confidential report prepared by a consultant to the World Health Organization, the food industry has followed the example of the tobacco industry, infiltrating the WHO and exerting "undue influence" over policies intended to safeguard public health by limiting the amount of fat, sugar and salt we consume. "The easy movement of experts - toxicologists in particular - between private firms, universities, tobacco and food industries and international agencies creates the conditions for conflict of interest," says the report by Norbert Hirschhorn.

"If you want to save the world, forget going to protests and give up on the press releases. It's time to work with corporations -- or so an increasing number of former activists turned corporate consultants would like you to believe," writes frequent PR Watch contributor Bob Burton. "Not only is consulting more financially rewarding than working for non-government organizations (NGOs), it is defended as a superior form of activism. ... The often crude corporate efforts of the 1980s and 1990s aimed at defeating activist campaigns are now being superseded by softer strategies of enticing non-government organizations to do less on the streets and more in 'partnerships' in corporate boardrooms designing 'win-win' solutions."

Not everyone enjoyed "British-American Tobacco's Socially Responsible Smoke Screen," our article from the last issue of PR Watch that examined BAT's social reporting process. Eugenio Rengifo, a baritone with a Chilean band, emailed us a stinging letter, calling the article a "joke. Do you really believe in what you wrote about this?" But Eugenio the baritone didn't bother to inform us that he was also a PR executive with BAT's Chilean subsidiary.

"Just as the advertising industry picks up the pieces from a crushing slump, the drumbeat of war is threatening to spoil the recovery," write Merissa Marr and Adam Pasick. "Advertisers are nervously reviewing their campaigns as a U.S.-led conflict in Iraq looms ... reporting a reluctance among some marketers to spend money on new campaigns and launch new products. ... In the last Gulf war in 1991, advertising spending almost entirely dried up for two months. Many advertisers also pulled existing campaigns and delayed the launch of new ones in the wake of the September 11 attacks on the United States."

The media-savvy internet-based peace group MoveOn has rapidly built an impressive on-line membership of more than 600,000 citizens. Two weeks ago it garnered major national publicity with its "TV Daisy Advertisement" opposing a US attack on Iraq. Now MoveOn hopes to recruit many thousands of volunteers to "consider pledging a day over the next two weeks" in a "massive, coordinated, grassroots PR campaign -- one that can reach millions of people and ... make it impossible to ignore the anti-war sentiment in this country -- you'll see signs in windows, bumper stickers on cars, flyers on your doorstep, billboards along the streets, and ads and letters in the newspaper. ... The Bush Administration has the bully pulpit of the presidency for its public relations work. We have the power of coordinated grassroots action."

PR crisis manager Nick Nichols, who advises companies to use attack-dog strategies against pesky activists, delivered another fiery speech this weekend at the Conservative Political Action Conference, branding environmentalists as terrorists and comparing them to Hitler. "A lot of [my] clients look like food to the more extreme environmental groups," he said. "Government and industry have to start fighting these folks." Similar sentiments came from other speakers at the conference, which included a long list of corporate-friendly names such as Bob Barr, L. Brent Bozell III, Pat Buchanan, Mona Charen, Tom DeWeese, Lucianne Goldberg, David Horowitz, Alan Keyes, Steve Milloy, Grover Norquist, Oliver North, Daniel Pipes, Phyllis Schlafly, Craig Shirley and Ken Starr. U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney delivered the keynote speech, while vendors at exhibition booths sold anti-Muslim hate paraphernalia.

The Reporters' Committee for Freedom of the Press has established a weblog to cover freedom of information and other issues related to the new Department of Homeland Security, which came into existence officially on Jan. 24. "Behind the Homefront" is a "daily chronicle of news in homeland security and military operations affecting newsgathering, access to information and the public's right to know."

Denver police intelligence bureau officers may have conducted background checks for private companies and spied on journalists, according to a federal lawsuit. Police also kept files on groups and individuals they labeled "criminal extremists" including the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), an 85-year old pacifist Quaker group that won the Nobel Peace Prize for its advocacy of non-violent social change, and the Chiapas Coalition, which supports the struggle of indigenous persons in the Mexican state of Chiapas. Individuals whose names appeared in police files include Sister Antonio Anthony, a 73-year old Franciscan nun.

"The budget request for the State Department for 2004 reflects the changing foreign policy priorities of an administration set on winning the global war on terrorism and the hearts and minds of the countries where terrorists recruit," UPI's Eli J. Lake writes. "It includes $30 million to launch the Middle East Television Network, an Arabic language satellite station. Also, the budget will double funding for the Voice of America's Indonesia channel. ... Big losers in the budget include both big and small programs. The request for military assistance for international peace-keeping operations is just under $95 million -- less than a third of the $375 million allocated in 2002. But estimates for peace-keeping, because it is so controversial on Capitol Hill, are often underestimated in budget requests."

For years the US media has failed to report adequately on NASA's growing practice of launching radioactive materials into space. The explosive breakup of the shuttle Columbia is getting massive coverage, but the media is not drawing attention to two upcoming launches that will contain nuclear materials. The radio program Democracy Now! has been an exception to the blackout on nukes in space, reporting today that "the crash comes at time when the space agency is quickly pushing forward its controversial plans to increase the use of nuclear power in space flights. Experts warn that had the Columbia been powered by nuclear rockets, much of East Texas and the region would have to be evacuated due to radioactive contamination. Two weeks ago the Los Angeles Times reported that NASA is seeking 'significant resources and funding' to design a nuclear-powered propulsion system." Of course putting nukes in space has its lobbyists and cheerleaders such as Space.Com and Tech Central Station "where free markets meet technology," funded by corporations including ExxonMobil, AT&T, Nasdaq, Microsoft, and General Motors.

"The Federal Communications Commission, led by Michael ('my religion is the market') Powell, is fixing to remove the last remaining barriers against concentration of media," writes Molly Ivins. "This means one company can own all the radio stations, television stations, newspapers and cable systems in any given area. Presently, 10 companies own over 90 percent of the media outlets. Bill Kovach of the Committee of Concerned Journalists and Tom Rosenstiel of the Project for Excellence in Journalism say these are the most sweeping changes in the rules that govern ownership of American media since the 1940s. The ownership rules were put in place after we had seen how totalitarian governments use domination of the media to goad their countries into war. We already know what happens when the free market zealots remove restrictions on ownership. In 1996, the FCC eliminated its rules on radio ownership. Conglomerates now own hundreds of stations around the country. One company, Clear Channel, owns more than 1,200 stations, and there are 30 percent fewer station owners than there were before 1996. The result is less local news and local programming, since the formats are programmed at headquarters."

"Readers have a right to assume that what they read on the letters page is not canned public relations material," Boston Globe Editorial Page Editor Renee Loth said. Responding to unknowingly running GOP "astroturf" form letters, the Globe is instituting a new policy to "confirm original authorship on any letter that could be part of an organized campaign." Globe Ombudsman Christine Chinlund writes that while readers may find the fake grassroots letters-to-the-editor offensive, in political campaigning circles, there is bipartisan support. She writes that former Clinton press secretary and current Grassroots Enterprise CEO Michael McCurry's response to critics is: "Grow up and join the Internet Age." On his own site, McCurry writes, "I believe that the power of the Internet in this capacity has only begun to be tapped by public affairs pros. And that power is extraordinary."

"The State Department's public affairs division has gone on the offensive to combat last month's reports that its Shared Values initiative was faltering after the disappearance of its centerpiece, a $15 million advertising campaign," PR Week's Douglas Quenqua writes. The State Department said its TV ads that featured Muslim Americans "talking about their positive experiences living in the US" were no longer being broadcast because the spots were meant only to be aired during the month of Ramadan. The State Department's "street-level diplomacy" campaign Shared Values also includes speaking tours, town-hall meetings, print publications, radio broadcasts, and Arab outreach programs. The "driving force" behind Shared Values is former Madison Avenue advertising executive and current Undersecretary for Public Diplomacy Charlotte Beers. PR Week reports Beers said that the TV ads' real impact will come later when Muslim Americans starring in the ads visit the regions in which the ads aired. "They're going to be available for questions and answers, and even those countries that didn't have it on their national channel will get these speakers. They'll be covered by the local press; they've become stars because they have such high coverage and awareness," Beers said.

A reproduction of the "Guernica" work by Pablo Picasso, which depicts the horrors of war, has been covered with a curtain at the United Nations because it is apparently an "inappropriate" backdrop for discussions of the pending war with Iraq: "A diplomat stated that it would not be an appropriate background if the ambassador of the United States at the U.N. John Negroponte, or Powell, talk about war surrounded with women, children and animals shouting with horror and showing the suffering of the bombings."

Washington Post columnist Gene Weingarten feels "sorry for African American Republicans. They've never had it real good ... So I was heartened when I happened on a Web site last month run by a group called the African American Republican Leadership Council. ... The honorary chairman of the panel is listed as former U.S. senator Edward W. Brooke III, a Republican from Massachusetts. So I called up Brooke, who confirmed the important fact that he is black. Alas, he is not in any way associated with the group. He said he'd never heard of it and had no idea why his name was on the site. However, he was only 'honorary.' Beneath his name were the names of the group's official 15-person Advisory Panel. It includes noted conservatives Paul Weyrich, Sean Hannity, Grover Norquist and Gary Bauer, all of whom are as white as a mashed potato and marshmallow sandwich on Wonder Bread. In fact, all but two of the 15 members of the Advisory Panel of the African American Republican Leadership Council are white." The mission and purpose of the AARLC, says its website, "is to break the liberal Democrat stranglehold over Black America."

The New York Times notes that "spurred by local antiwar sentiment, dozens of cities and counties around the country have passed resolutions imploring President Bush to slow down his confrontation with Iraq. ... City and county councils in 20 states have passed such measures, from small towns like Woodstock, N.Y., to cities as large as Chicago, Philadelphia and Detroit." Well-funded right wing supporters of the march to war "stand ready to try to mobilize a countermovement. Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform, said his organization had sent every state legislature a proposed measure for adoption the day fighting starts that supports Mr. Bush's actions." (Ironically, Norquist has also been working to broker a "strange alliance" between the Republican Party and radical Islam.)

For three years, John R. Lott Jr., the controversial American Enterprise Institute scholar and author of "More Guns, Less Crime," has used the pseudonym of "Mary Rosh" to post defenses of himself on the Internet. "Rosh" described Lott as a meticulous, non-ideological researcher, and even claimed to be one of his former students. "I have to say that he was the best professor I ever had," Rosh gushed in one Internet posting.

"A public-relations firm is dealing with a public-relations nightmare after unintentionally e-mailing journalists and others documents about one of its clients, Seattle-based Cell Therapeutics. The mass e-mail from Shepardson Stern + Kaminsky on Wednesday revealed the candid views of Cell Therapeutics managers and outside analysts on the strengths and weaknesses of the biotechnology company. SS+K asserts that the message was sent out as the result of a computer virus. The report, a summary of interviews conducted by SS+K, cites 'skepticism' and 'outright cynicism' about Cell Therapeutics from both within and outside the biotech firm. The company's chief drug in development, Xyotax, an anti-cancer drug, 'risks being over-hyped and overpromised,' the report says. Additionally, it says, the clinical division of Cell Therapeutics, which tests drugs on humans, 'has failed in the past and not yet addressed the root causes of that failure.' ... Hours after the report was dispatched, SS+K sent another e-mail warning recipients to delete the earlier one without opening it. 'An email sent from my mailbox earlier today contains a serious virus and should not be opened, said the message from SS+K employee Susan Pierson Brown."