Pentagon military analyst program

[1] The goal of the operation is "to spread the administration's talking points on Iraq by briefing retired commanders for network and cable television appearances," where they have been presented as independent analysts.

[3][4] The Times article suggests that the analysts had undisclosed financial conflicts of interest and were given special access as a reward for promoting the administration's point of view.

[9] Peace activist Colman McCarthy had warned of the potential conflicts of interest many of the same analysts had in a Washington Post op-ed in April 2003.

"[1] Robert S. Bevelacqua, a critic of the Bush administration, retired Green Beret and former Fox News analyst said, "It was them saying, 'We need to stick our hands up your back and move your mouth for you.

[15] The Pentagon also helped two of the retired commanders write an article in The Wall Street Journal,[6] "forwarded talking points and statistics to rebut the notion" of a spreading "General's revolt" against Donald Rumsfeld in April 2006 (q.v.).

On 22 May 2008, the House passed an amendment to the annual military authorization bill that would mandate investigations of the program by both the inspector general's office at the Defense Department and the GAO.

Further, we found insufficient basis to conclude that [the office of public affairs] conceived of or undertook a disciplined effort to assemble a contingent of influential RMAs who could be depended on to comment favorably on DoD programs."

Barstow replied that the Times public editor, Clark Hoyt, had found the DoD IG's investigation "highly flawed" and labeled it a "whitewash.

According to Horstman, the review found that Pentagon officials who had devised and managed the analyst program had refused to speak to DoD investigators.

[21] The Government Accountability Office (GAO), with assistance from the Comptroller General of the United States, released a report on its investigation into the program in July 2009.

The GAO concluded, however, that the DoD had not violated any laws with its conduct of the program, because government agencies have traditionally been given wide leeway in how they inform the public about their work.

"[22] The Federal Communications Commission, in response to the GAO report and urging from Representative John Dingell, stated that it was investigating whether television broadcasters broke "payola" rules on proper disclosure of sponsorship when they used the military analysts.