U.S. paid P.R. firm $540 million to make fake al-Qaida videos in Iraq propaganda program
Report: Pentagon paid a company founded by Margaret Thatcher's P.R. guru half a billion for secret war propaganda
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An explosive new report reveals how the U.S. government paid a British public relations company linked to right-wing politics and repressive regimes more than $500 million from American taxpayers to spearhead a top-secret propaganda campaign in Iraq.
Bell Pottinger, a London-based P.R. firm, created fake videos that appeared to be the work of al-Qaida, the Islamist extremist group formerly headed by Osama bin Laden. It also created news stories that looked as though they were produced by Arab media outlets, and distributed them through Middle Eastern news networks.
The company worked in Camp Victory, the U.S. military base in Baghdad, side-by-side with high-ranking U.S. military officers.
The propaganda videos were personally approved by Gen. David Petraeus — then the commander of U.S.-led coalition forces in Iraq, who would go on to become the director of the CIA. On some occasions, even the White House signed off on the propaganda materials.
These findings are the result of a major investigation by The Bureau of Investigative Journalism, a British watchdog organization that is also known for its extensive reporting on the covert U.S. drone wars in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia.
The Bureau of Investigative Journalism jointly published its findings in The Sunday Times of London and The Daily Beast. Reporters reviewed government and corporate reports and interviewed half a dozen former officials and contractors involved in the Iraq propaganda campaign.
The former chairman of Bell Pottinger, Timothy Bell, told reporters that his company worked on a “covert” military operation “covered by various secrecy documents.” The firm reported to the Pentagon, the CIA and the National Security Council.
Bell is a P.R. virtuoso who carefully crafted the image of former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, a hard-line right-wing leader. Bell helped propel the Conservative Party to win three elections. (Thatcher later returned the favor by nominating Bell for a knighthood.)
Bell has also worked with several repressive regimes. He has lobbied on behalf of the draconian Saudi monarchy, and The Economist reported in 2008 that the authoritarian regime in Belarus had “hired a U.K. spin doctor, Lord Timothy Bell, to polish its image abroad.”
In 2011, the Bureau of Investigative Journalism exposed how senior executives at Bell Pottinger suggested they could manipulate Google results to “drown” out negative coverage of human rights violations and child labor. They also revealed that the P.R. firm has a team that “sorts,” or alters, negative Wikipedia entries on its clients.