This is regarding Chicago Tribune columnist Clarence Page’s “Blaming messenger is for losers” (Commentary, April 5).
The column claims that Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld “recently praised the propaganda effort in a newspaper column as a clever use of `non-traditional means to provide accurate information to the Iraqi people.'”
This is a misrepresentation of Secretary Rumsfeld’s statement.
The secretary said:
“The U.S. military command, working closely with the Iraqi government and the U.S. Embassy, has sought non-traditional means to provide accurate information to the Iraqi people in the face of [an] aggressive campaign of disinformation. Yet this has been portrayed as inappropriate–for example, the allegations of someone in the military hiring a contractor, and the contractor allegedly paying someone to print a story–a true story.”
The secretary of defense neither “praised” this particular program nor referred to it as “clever.”
Instead he cited it as an example of how the department’s communications efforts are granted “no tolerance for innovation” from the press, noting that any attempt to try something new is met with an “explosion of critical press stories.”
Page’s explosion of criticism directed toward the secretary for even discussing the topic is a perfect example of this unfortunate phenomenon, and thus proves Rumsfeld’s original point.
