In an LA Times story that notes that Bush lied when he said down two years ago that he'd closed down the Pentagon disinformation office, there's a very troubling paragraph:
It cited an incident on Oct. 14 when a Marine spokesman announced, via CNN, the start of the Fallujah offensive, which did not actually happen for another three weeks. The idea was to see in advance how the insurgents would respond. The Times referred to this as just one of the “psy-op” episodes so far.Putting aside the fact that the executive branch is now giving misinformation to the American media, there's a bigger problem here. Bush intentionally used the spooks to convince the American people that he was taking decisive action against the increasing turmoil in Fallujah less than 3 weeks before the US presidential election. Turns out Bush lied. He wasn't taking decisive action in Iraq. But we all thought he was. Was this done to trick the American people right before the election? To make them think Bush was taking care of the Iraq mess? Intent or not, that's clearly the effect the message would have - and even better, Bush's little attack had no casualties, because THERE WAS NO ATTACK. But we didn't know that, so Bush got kudos for no American troops getting killed, again helping him in the polls.
That is incredibly disturbing news.
Here's CNN's reporting on the "fake" attack:
LOU DOBBS, CNN ANCHOR: Tonight, a major military operation in Iraq. The U.S. military and Iraqi forces advancing against insurgents in Fallujah. A ground and air attack is underway at this hour...
DOBBS: Good evening.
Tonight, U.S. Marines have launched a major assault on the insurgent stronghold of Fallujah west of Baghdad. American warplanes and artillery blasting suspected insurgent positions within the city. The attack comes one day after the Iraqi prime minister ordered Fallujah's leaders to hand over foreign fighters or face, as he put it, annihilation.
Senior Pentagon Correspondent Jamie McIntyre has our report -- Jamie.
JAMIE MCINTYRE, CNN SENIOR PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Well, Lou, to put this in perspective, Pentagon officials are telling us that while this is a significant military operation, it is not yet the major offensive that's designed to take back control of Fallujah.
It is part of a stepped-up campaign to battle the insurgents in Fallujah, which included air strikes today against several targets that were believed to be associated with the terrorist network of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, including several safe houses, illegal checkpoints and weapon storage areas.
A short time ago, I talked to Marine 1st Lieutenant Lyle Gilbert who described the operations that are going on on the ground.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
1ST LT. LYLE GILBERT, U.S. MARINES: We've been working on this every single day, dealing with insurgents and dealing with terrorists and thugs and the anti-Iraqi forces at large.
This particular operation is pretty invasive, and we've got aircraft, helicopters, fixed wing, as well as tanks and Marines, U.S. Army forces as well as Iraqi forces involved in this operation.
So it's a significant effort, and when, all is said and done, there's going to be a lot less of the anti-Iraqi forces than we're dealing with right now.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MCINTYRE: Again, those U.S. and Iraqi forces on the ground will be operating, according to the Marines, in and around Fallujah.
But the U.S. military says this is as a result of intelligence that indicated that members of the Zarqawi network and other anti-U.S. forces were planning to step up attacks for Ramadan, which starts tomorrow.
This is an effort to cut them off at the knees essentially, try to undercut their ability to launch those attacks, while the major offensive is still to come in the future -- Lou.
DOBBS: Jamie, thank you.
Jamie McIntyre, our senior Pentagon correspondent.
Later here, I'll be talking with General David Grange about the force size and the strategy behind tonight's assault against Fallujah.
