BY M. M. Zuhair PC

Remember those chilling utterances of the so-called Al-Qaeda leaders, captured on video and seen around the globe, threatening to attack Western capitals in retaliation for the US-led coalition invading Middle-Eastern countries? Do you recall seeing those horrific pictures displaying knife wielding ISIS executioners about to chop off the heads of foreign journalists?

You must have seen hundreds of such revulsive video clips and pictures publicised worldwide. But I am yet to see clippings of executions actually being carried out! I have not seen even post-execution shots! In any event how were they allowed to photo record the pre-execution scenes? If ISIS brutality is what was to be shown then, one might expect blurred versions of the executions or post-execution pictures to be put out. May be it is never done?

A British based Journalism Bureau says fake news and DVDs were in fact produced by a British company working for the US Defence Ministry in Camp Victory in Iraq during the invasion of Iraq. The contents of the vast volumes of fake news productions are however still not clear.

The London-based Bureau of Investigative Journalism, in a report released on Sunday 2nd October 2016 has exposed the Pentagon for having contracted, during the US led war in Iraq, a British lobbying cum PR firm to produce (a) fake news in Iraq (b) fake Al-Qaeda propaganda DVDs (c) mostly made in the style of Arabic news networks.

Titled “Fake News and False Flags”, the Bureau of Investigative Journalism (BIJ) a UK based not- for-profit organisation of investigative journalists has revealed that the “Pentagon gave a controversial UK PR firm over half a billion dollars to run a top secret propaganda programme in Iraq”. Propaganda according to its dictionary meaning imputes the distribution of ‘misleading’ or ‘dishonest’ information.

“The agency’s staff worked alongside high-ranking US military officers in their Baghdad Camp Victory headquarters as the insurgency raged outside.” The UK PR firm named in the report Bell Pottinger reported on its work in Iraq to the Pentagon, the CIA and the National Security Council, according to its Chairman Lord Tim Bell. He quit his Chairmanship on 25th August 2016, five weeks prior to the BIJ report.

Lord Tim Bell has confirmed to the UK Sunday Times, which worked with the BIJ on this case that his firm had worked on a “covert” military operation “covered” by various secrecy agreements.”

According to the BIJ, “It identified transactions worth $540 million between the Pentagon and Bell Pottinger for information operations and psychological operations on a series of contracts issued from May 2007 to December 2011. A similar contract at around the same annual rate -$120 million-was in force in 2006.” The BIJ identified transactions alone will aggregate to US $ 660 million (about SL Rs. 80 Billion during the relevant period).

The Bureau of Investigative Journalism states that it traced Bell Pottinger’s Iraq work through US army contracting censuses, federal procurement transaction records and reports by the Department of Defence (DOD) Inspector General, as well as Bell Pottinger’s corporate filings and specialist publications on military propaganda. The Bureau states that it interviewed half a dozen former officials and contractors involved in information operations in Iraq.

The Bureau states, “The Pentagon confirmed that Bell Pottinger did work for them as a contractor in Iraq under the Information Operations Task Force (IOTF), producing some material that was openly sourced to coalition forces, and some which was not. They insisted that all material put out by IOTF was “truthful”. The BIJ investigation, however, contradicts the truthfulness claim.

Bell Pottinger outputs, according to the BIJ report, were signed off by the then Commander of the Coalition Forces in Iraq, General David Petraeus, who was recalled and appointed Director CIA in 2011 from which he resigned after his controversial affair with a journalist. What Petraeus did not sign off got referred to White House for clearance, the report states.

It would appear the production of the fake videos and news material had the approval of the then US President George Bush who in 2003 launched the illegal and unjustified war on Iraq. The Bureau report however does not say so. Iraqis say Bush launched a reckless war that destroyed Iraq and put their country back by several decades, in order to make US client state in the middle-east region Israel stronger. Barack Obama who took over the US Presidency on 20th January 2009 pulled out the last troops from Iraq by 2011, though US forces still remain.

In the first media interview any Bell Pottinger employee has given about the work for the US military in Iraq, video editor Martin Wells – who no longer works for the company-has told the BIJ his time in Camp Victory was, “shocking, eye-opening and life changing”!

Wells admits the production of fake Al Qaeda propaganda material produced on strict instructions from the military but claims that the CDs were dropped off in places raided by the military. The CDs had an embedded code linked to an analytical account that the producers of the fake videos claimed could track Al Qaeda sympathisers!

The CDs were more likely produced and aired worldwide containing possibly the purported utterances by the Al-Qaeda’s so called leaders, some of which threatened attacks on Western capitals. Probably the propaganda with fake contents helped convince people back at home that their military and the mercenaries, remember Black Water, were fighting a justifiable war in another part of the world! Equally likely the production of fake news reports, containing perhaps high profile dramatised military successes and aired as if sourced by Arab locals may have served similar purposes.

But the question remains as to why the Pentagon should spend colossal sums on a UK-based PR firm with expertise in spin doctoring to produce fake stories, while nearly 40 media related companies were already in Iraq being paid for understandable services such as TV and radio placements, video production, billboards, advertising and opinion polls! It is also noteworthy, Bell Pottinger staff and the US military worked in one building in Camp Victory, but securely separated, which status the other 40 media outfits apparently did not enjoy.

It is to be noted, Bell Pottinger changed ownership, after a management buy-out in2012 and its current management has no connection with the unit that operated in Iraq, which closed in 2011, according to the Bureau.

The investigations done by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism of UK have brought out startling disclosures of how the Pentagon funded deception of the Iraqis and possibly Americans and perhaps the world at large, under colour of tracking Al Qaeda sympathisers. The BIJ findings need a convincing response from the Pentagon, at least to clear itself. The least that can be done by those accountable for the reprehensible acts is to place their clarifications before the BIJ. The issues in the public domain require full and comprehensive explanations and they do not fall within any sensible rules of secrecy!

Failing a satisfactory response, BIJ may consider a public inquiry similar in line to the Chilcot Inquiry on Iraq and possibly appraise the UN Human Rights Council and similar bodies.

It is important also to explain whether similar tactics are being employed against the ISIS. The world sees from time to time horrific images of ISIS terrorists beheading persons allegedly captured by them. Are they real or fake ones? Are they a part of the psychological warfare justifying invasions? These questions arise from the stunning disclosures of the British journalists.

Meanwhile some media reports are unbelievably funny! The latest put out on 6th October via metro news claims ‘ISIS declares fatwa against cats’! The news story is that senior ISIS clerics had forbidden ‘under Islamic law’ the indoor breeding of cats. ISIS fighters, the Metro news said were now going house to house hunting for kittens! Either ISIS fighters have gone crazy or being made to appear silly by those who ran the story! Be that as it may.

The citizens of the world are entitled to know whether the never ending wars that the West had imposed over the last hundred years on struggling third world countries- one after another- under various pretexts were legitimate and justified. Opinion is gaining worldwide, that substantial sections of the Western media are working hand in glove with the arms industry to keep arms factories working continuously while experimenting new arms and ammunitions on third world countries.

The failure of the Western international wire services and the media in general to pick up the London investigative journalists’ initiative, ‘Fake news and false flags’, is a sad example of the pathetic levels to which Western journalism in general had fallen into, with rare exceptions such as this report of the British Bureau of investigative Journalists and the Chilcot Report gathering dust!