U.S. Government

The Pentagon Muzzles the CIA

"Even as it prepares for war against Iraq, the Pentagon is already engaged on a second front: its war against the Central Intelligence Agency. The Pentagon is bringing relentless pressure to bear on the agency to produce intelligence reports more supportive of war with Iraq," writes Robert Dreyfuss. "Morale inside the U.S.

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Koppel Says Yes to Military Censorship

"If and when a press corps of 3000 to 5000 lands with the U.S. military in Iraq, should they be prohibited from broadcasting the war live, using their videophones and satellite dishes? Yes, under some circumstances, says Nightline anchor Ted Koppel."

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Bodies? What Bodies?

War correspondent Leon Daniel was puzzled by the lack of corpses at the tip of the Neutral Zone between Saudi Arabia and Iraq on Feb. 25, 1991. Clearly there had been plenty of killing on the previous day, which marked the beginning of the ground war in Operation Desert Storm. But there were no visible signs of carnage because the army had already plowed dirt over all of the bodies. "What happened at the Neutral Zone that day has become a metaphor for the conduct of modern warfare," writes Patrick Sloyan.

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A One-Way Information Highway

"Nothing more starkly illustrates the federal government's post-Sept. 11 desire to learn more about its citizens and to divulge less about itself than the new homeland security legislation," write James Kuhnhenn and Drew Brown. "Approved by the Senate last week and destined for President Bush's signature, the bill would make it easier for government agencies to gather information about individuals and groups, including their e-mail, the phone calls they place, and the Web sites they view.

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Silencing Whistleblowers at Yucca Mountain

In our book, Toxic Sludge Is Good For You, we reported on the U.S. government's disastrous PR campaign to build public support in Nevada for a high-level nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain. Now two workers at the Yucca Mountain Project to dispose of high-level nuclear waste say they were fired or transferred after raising concerns about the project's safety.

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APCO Represents Association of Southeast Asian Nations

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations hired APCO Worldwide to develop "positive U.S.-ASEAN ties." "President Bush has made establishing free trade agreements with each individual ASEAN nation a foreign policy priority," O'Dwyer's PR Daily reports. "The U.S. Administration also counts on ASEAN support for its war on terrorism." Singapore, Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Laos, Viet Nam, Thailand, Cambodia, Brunei and Myanmar are ASEAN member countries.

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Bob Woodward's PR Ideal

"The model for me for someone in the public relations business is, to a certain extent, the U.S. military," journalist and Watergate legend Bob Woodward said in a keynote address to the Public Relation's Society of America's National Capital Chapter in Washington, D.C. PRSA's Strategist reports how Woodward, assistant managing editor of the Washington Post, defines the model PR professional. "The best sources for straight information were people in the U.S.

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Homeland Security vs. Freedom of Information

The Homeland Defense Bill currently working its way through Congress adds a new exemption to the Freedom of Information Act, protecting the secrecy of information that companies submit voluntarily to the government. Supporters say the exemption makes it easier for companies to share information with the government to assist the "war on terrorism." Critics, like Rep.

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This War Brought To You By The Rendon Group

"'Word got around the department that I was a good Arabic translator who did a great Saddam imitation,' recalls the Harvard grad student. 'Eventually, someone phoned me, asking if I wanted to help change the course of Iraq policy,'" writes Asia Times (Hong Kong) correspondent Ian Urbina.

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