New Pentagon Papers?

[PLC1]

Behind TV Analysts, Pentagon’s Hidden Hand

To the public, these men are members of a familiar fraternity, presented tens of thousands of times on television and radio as “military analysts” whose long service has equipped them to give authoritative and unfettered judgments about the most pressing issues of the post-Sept. 11 world.

Hidden behind that appearance of objectivity, though, is a Pentagon information apparatus that has used those analysts in a campaign to generate favorable news coverage of the administration’s wartime performance, an examination by The New York Times has found.

Five years into the Iraq war, most details of the architecture and execution of the Pentagon’s campaign have never been disclosed. But The Times successfully sued the Defense Department to gain access to 8,000 pages of e-mail messages, transcripts and records describing years of private briefings, trips to Iraq and Guantánamo and an extensive Pentagon talking points operation.

Will these details of the war in Iraq be as damning of the conduct of said war as the Pentagon Papers were of the last elective war? Keep tuned, as there will be more to come. It's just too bad that this story hasn't been on the evening news. It is surely more important than what does occupy prime time most of the time.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/20/washington/20generals.html?pagewanted=2&hp