Tom Curley, CEO of The Associated Press, said in a recent speech that journalists trying to report about occurrences in Iraq and Afghanistan have been silenced by the Pentagon. Curley continued on to say that the Bush administration has turned the Pentagon into a global propaganda machine.

Curley lamented the efforts against “independent reporting from the battlefield,” citing the numerous AP journalists and photographers who have been detained, in one case for more than two years.

A year-long AP investigation released days before Curley’s talk revealed that the U.S. Department of Defense spent more than $4.7 billion last year on public relations and “influence operations.” This is almost the same amount spent on body armor for troops in Iraq and Afghanistan between 2004 and 2006, according to the report.

Some $547 million has gone toward efforts targeted at the American public. Existing laws ban propaganda aimed at Americans, which brings the Pentagon’s actions into question.

“It’s not up to the Pentagon to sell policy to the American people,” Rep. Paul Hodes (D-N.H.) said.

Others argue that the programs are vital.

“We have got to be involved in getting our case out there, telling our side of the story, because believe me, al-Qaida and all of those folks ... that’s what they are doing on the Internet and everywhere else,” Rep. Adam Smith, (D-Wash.) told the AP.

Curley disagreed with Smith’s argument.

“Does America need to resort to al-Qaida tactics?” Curley asked.

He questioned whether the U.S. government should be as involved as it is.

Curley acknowledged that several of Bush’s policies have been overturned by President Barack Obama. He linked much of the propaganda efforts to former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and his 2003 push for renewed psychological operations, which were defended by current Defense Secretary Robert Gates in 2007.

A New York Times investigation published April of last year revealed that under Rumsfeld, the Pentagon was running a program that hired more than 75 retired military officers to deliver a carefully crafted message meant to develop public support for the war after the public started turning against it — “a kind of media Trojan horse” that shaped media coverage, as journalist David Barstow put it.

Retired Army Col. Ken Allard called the program “[psychological operations] on steroids.”

Eight thousand pages of U.S. Department of Defense e-mails, transcripts, talking points and briefings revealed a “symbiotic relationship” where the separation between government and journalism had been “obliterated,” wrote Barstow.

“[Journalists] are the only force out there to keep the government in check and to hold it accountable during wartime,” Curley said, adding that Americans “expect honest answers about what’s happening to their sons and daughters.”

Reach reporter Aditya Ganapathiraju at news@dailyuw.com.