The Word at War

"When you use that term about our business, you discredit our business," says Garfield, the influence director.

For Craig, the Lincoln Group president, "propaganda" conjures "posters from World War II where every American is thinking that Germans are just stabbing babies or the Japanese are a bunch of crazy lunatics."

Says Garfield: "One of the things our critics do in the deployment of the term propaganda is they then seek to stifle any debate."

Now he breaks into a full-bore lecture: "It's as if telling the Iraqi people about the positive aspects, about the emergence of democracy in their country, the significant efforts being done by the coalition to protect them, to achieve the security that everybody acknowledges is necessary for people to embrace a new government and a new armed forces -- as if all of that is bad. The moment you label it with the term propaganda, you immediately end any debate. It's absolutely necessary to counter the negative use of information by our adversaries."

Sending Signals

So how does the Lincoln Group attempt to capture Iraqi hearts and minds? "We use whatever mediums one could employ to influence an audience," says Garfield.

They've planted those fake news articles trumpeting pro-U.S. stories. They've conceived and distributed anti-terror comic strips and leaflets. They ran a campaign that distributed water bottles bearing a phone number that Iraqis could call to report terror activity to U.S. authorities. They do research, media analysis, polling and focus groups. They seek to completely understand a culture, so they can better influence it.

Speaking hypothetically, the Lincoln officials said entertainment, music, soap operas, comedy, documentaries, educational programs and advertising also can be employed to influence.

Would a visitor be able to identify Lincoln Group's work in Iraq?

"You shouldn't stumble across our work," says Garfield. "What I mean is: You shouldn't know it was our work."

Lincoln's work complements military psyops. In Iraq and Afghanistan, psyops teams have air-dropped leaflets telling people not to resist U.S. troops. They've hollered through loudspeakers urging the enemy to surrender. They have transmitted radio broadcasts from an airplane called Commando Solo and distributed radios on which such broadcasts can be heard.

Military commanders have at times used false information to fool the enemy, such as the October 2004 announcement that the battle of Fallujah had started when, in fact, it did not begin until three weeks later. Information has been used to buoy the spirits of the American public, such as the initial heroic fiction offered on the capture and rescue of Army Pfc. Jessica Lynch.

The Lynch story was among the stories cited in a 2003 analysis titled "Truth From These Podia," by Sam Gardiner, a retired U.S. Air Force colonel and former instructor at the National War College. Gardiner studied the Iraq-war-related statements of U.S. and British officials and found "over 50 stories manufactured or at least engineered that distorted the picture" for American and British newspaper readers.