Feingold writes a letter to the Government Accountability Office inquiring about the Pentagon’s in-house propaganda outfit.

Excerpts:

The Pentagon is free to air its views on any military operation but it should do so openly.
Potential covert production of press materials by the Defense Department would
undermine full and open public debate on one of the most important matters facing this
country, the war in Iraq. Such debate is essential to our democracy.

According to the article, the documents suggest that the Pentagon supplied retired
officers serving as analysts for several major American broadcasters with private
briefings with Sec. Rumsfeld, talking points in anticipation of appearing on TV, and
commercial airfare. Allegedly, the Pentagon discouraged the analysts from publicly
describing the nature of their relationship with the Pentagon. This clearly violates the
spirit, if not the letter, of the law.

Basically, the Pentagon supplied pro-war, pro-administration retired army officers to news outlets for the purpose of providing what was advertised to the public as unbiased analysis of the war in Iraq.  On-air, these officers’ connections to the Pentagon was undisclosed, and the American people were misled into thinking they were getting analysis based on field expertise, not political bias.

We know the Republicans sold their war to the American people with lies; we just didn’t know how far and how deep those lies went.  Now, at least, we have a little more of the whole picture.