Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld and President Bush have backed away from the Pentagon's new propaganda arm, the Office of Strategic Influence. The administration is scrambling to deal with public backlash against the idea of a Pentagon propaganda office that would, among other actions, disseminate false and misleading information to US allies. Today's New York Times quotes "a senior Administration official" who said, "(Bush) specifically mentioned that the office would be shut down before it started or that its focus would be dramatically narrowed to obvious things like leaflet campaigns.'"