History is Happening Now

If you haven’t already, I highly recommend you read David Barstow’s fantastic (and long) NYT article on the growing network of media-military consultants who are paid by companies to land them lucrative Pentagon contracts while being simultaneously courted by the media to appears as experts on the Iraq war and other military matters. These ex-military men were often presented as disinterested commentators and their connections to Pentagon contractors were were typically not disclosed on air.

Barstow writes:

Through seven years of war an exclusive club has quietly flourished at the intersection of network news and wartime commerce. Its members, mostly retired generals, have had a foot in both camps as influential network military analysts and defense industry rainmakers. It is a deeply opaque world, a place of privileged access to senior government officials, where war commentary can fit hand in glove with undisclosed commercial interests and network executives are sometimes oblivious to possible conflicts of interest.

Read the whole thing–it’s an exemplary piece of journalism, sort of like reading an episode of The Wire focused on the Pentagon system. And while you’re at it, you should also read Barstow’s equally important April article on the Pentagon’s cultivation of “message force multipliers” in the run-up the Iraq war: another case of supposedly “disinterested” experts appearing on air, their extensive ties to the Pentagon’s public relations arm often unmentioned.

Most astonishing: the revelation that many of these Pentagon-groomed pundits were also simultaneously working for private companies as consultants. And that, at least in the case of General Barry McCaffrey, a retired four star general who is the primary subject of the more recent article, these two roles came into conflict, with interesting results.

For example:

Only when the invasion met unexpected resistance did General McCaffrey give a glimpse of his misgivings. “We’ve placed ourselves in a risky proposition, 400 miles into Iraq with no flank or rear area security,” he told Katie Couric on “Today.”

Mr. Rumsfeld struck back. He abruptly cut off General McCaffrey’s access to the Pentagon’s special briefings and conference calls.

General McCaffrey was stunned. “I’ve never heard his voice like that,” recalled one close associate who asked not to be identified. Headded, “They showed him what life was like on the outside.”

Robert Weiner, a longtime publicist for General McCaffrey, said the general came to see that if he continued his criticism, he risked being shut out not only by Mr. Rumsfeld but also by his network of friends and contacts among the uniformed leadership.

Update:

Glenn Greenwald mentions that McCaffrey’s corporate connections were already well-documented by The Nation in 2003 and notes, I think correctly, that the greatest culpability in this situation lies with the television networks, not the Pentagon or the analysts themselves:

Last April, in the wake of Barstow’s front-page story, I documented at length numerous other facts featured in today’s Barstow article — including the countless times McCaffrey went on NBC News shows to advocate war policies that directly benefited his undisclosed business interests, as well as the completely deceitful way NBC presented McCaffrey as an independent and objective analyst without ever mentioning any of his multiple activities that clearly called into question his objectivity as an “analyst.”

….

In response, Williams finally addressed Barstow’s story on his blog (but not on his network news broadcast), yet did so only by ignoring all of the specific, substantive issues that were raised, instead offering a patronizing little lecture about how Williams himself had developed what he called “a close friendship” with both McCaffrey and Downing, and could therefore assure us that “these men are passionate patriots” who would never offer anything but the most honest and forthright assessments. That was the full extent of NBC and Williams’ response to this story.

Not only has NBC and Williams suppressed this story, but — more amazingly still — they continue to feature McCaffrey as an “analyst” on American war policies still without disclosing or even alluding to his participation in the Pentagon program and/or his still-extant business stakes in the policies he’s being asked to assess. Just this past Thursday night — 3 days ago — Williams featured McCaffrey on his NBC Nightly News program to opine about American policy in Afghanistan, and McCaffrey was identified only as a Retired General and NBC Military Analyst.

For me, the issue is disclosure. If as a viewer I know where McCaffrey’s coming from I can make my own decision about the credibility of his exclusive-access allegedly expert analysis.