Saturday, October 17, 2009
When the Defense Department first submitted its budget request to fund American military propaganda campaigns, it asked Congress for $988 million. After the House chopped the budget in half, Pentagon officials begged lawmakers to reconsider—and admitted that they really only needed $626 million. The inflation of almost $300 million in the original ask did not sit well with Democrats and Republicans.
Congressman John Murtha (D-PA), who chairs the defense appropriations subcommittee, and who knows a thing or two about inflated expenditures, remarked to Politico: “The information war is off to a bad start with bad information.” He later added: “I just don’t like the idea that the military is in the propaganda business.”
If Congress does approve $626 million for the Pentagon’s secretive Information Operations program, that amount would represent a dramatic increase over what was spent just two years ago. The 2007 budget was $244.6 million.
The Defense Department intends to get every dollar it can out of Congress for the propaganda campaigns, and it is enlisting help from the State Department to lobby lawmakers.
-Noel Brinkerhoff
Administration Fights to Protect Secret Propaganda Budget (by David Rogers, Politico)
Rumsfeld’s Roadmap to Propaganda (National Security Archive)
Comments