From: Harvey Newstrom (mail@HarveyNewstrom.com)
Date: Mon May 12 2003 - 20:06:19 MDT
Thanks for the detailed response. You have convinced me that there was no
major concerted effort to spread disinformation via embedded reporters. I
believe there were a few staged events, a few exaggerations, and a lot of
over-exuberance in extrapolating local successes to cover whole towns or
across other areas that had not been controlled yet. But these are
reasonable and expected in the "fog of war" as you describe it.
I retract my claim that embedded reporters were totally controlled by the
military.
I believe most of the examples I could find are easily explainable by other
means. I also learned a lot more about the disinformation campaign. It was
mostly directed inside Iraq over Iraqi TV and radio. It appears that the
military may have deliberately targeted news agencies inside Iraq to keep
them from broadcasting conflicting stories. These and other factors have
convinced me that there was a definite disinformation campaign by the
military, but that the embedded reporters were not part of this operation.
I also appreciate your even tone in discussing this with me, even where we
held radically opposing viewpoints. This was refreshing compared to some
other extreme accusations thrown at me recently.
-- Harvey Newstrom, CISSP, IAM, GSEC, IBMCP <www.HarveyNewstrom.com> <www.Newstaff.com>
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