Military and media give-and-take: one spokesman in Iraq tried to be more nimble

Masthead, The, Winter, 2007 by Karen Nolan

We've heard this before: The media is overly focused on bad news in Iraq. Good things happening there go unreported.

But here's a twist: At least one high-ranking Army officer says the military shares the blame for any lack of positive coverage.

"If we don't get our reporters where they need to be, then shame on us" Lieutenant General William B. Caldwell IV told NCEW members attending the Friday morning convention session in Kansas City last month.

Caldwell recently returned from Iraq, where he served as spokesman for the multinational forces there. It was a life-changing experience, he said. "After thirty-one years [in the Army], I am more different than I have ever been because of thirteen months of dealing with the media"

After his return in May, Caldwell was assigned to head the Army's Combined Arms Center at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. That puts him in charge of training military leaders not only at the Command and General Staff College, but also at more than a dozen other Army schools and training centers around the country. He intends to beef up media training, and that means changing the military mindset.

Current military thinking is that the media is an annoyance, Caldwell said bluntly. That results in trying to avoid journalists whenever possible, limiting media access, and providing only the most rudimentary answers to questions.

Yet, as he learned, "regardless of whether we engage the media or not, they have a story to tell and they are going to tell it."

When the military declines to provide its side of the story in a timely fashion, "we create a misperception and we allow the bad guys to say whatever they want," Caldwell said. "Disinformation, over time, becomes perception of reality and truth"

Over the course of his own Iraq tour, Caldwell said he changed how he did things. Instead of waiting weeks for information to be declassified, he had two military intelligence officers assigned to him so that it could be declassified within hours. Instead of waiting for journalists to ask about incidents, he alerted them when he heard anything. Instead of firing off facts, he put the information into context.

He also started inviting reporters to go with him whenever he went into the field. "The situation is so dangerous on the ground, we can't expect the media to get around without a military escort," he said.

Caldwell was one of three speakers during the Friday morning military affairs briefing. Also on the dais were two Air Force representatives, Colonel Thomas Bussiere and Brigadier General Christopher D. Miller.

Bussiere gave an overview of the B-2 stealth bomber, a unique plane designed to evade radar. The United States built twenty of them, at a cost of $2.2 billion each. From Whiteman Air Force Base, about eighty miles southeast of Kansas City, the planes can be deployed around the world, with the two-person crews flying thirty- to forty-hour missions and refueling in mid-air. The planes also can be deployed temporarily to a handful of air bases in the U.S. and abroad.

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The B-2 carries precision bombs chosen for specific targets. How precise are they? Bussiere offered this anecdote: A B-2 crew assigned to strike Saddam Hussein's intelligence unit was told it had missed the target. A closer look at intelligence photographs showed holes in the roof, and when troops finally captured the building, they discovered "total destruction inside."

Brigadier General Miller was scheduled to speak on "the future of the Air Force." He said it looked good, then announced a new topic: a NORAD and NORTHCOM briefing. Miller is director of plans, policy, and strategy at the commands' joint headquarters at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado.

The North American Aerospace Defense Command partners with Canada to keep track of anything flying in the air and space around the continental United States and Canada. Recently, it also took on tracking maritime vessels. NORAD has been around for decades, and its mission remains "to know what's going on in the air and assess its threat potential," Miller said.

The U.S. Northern Command was formed in the wake of 9/11. It works with Canada and Mexico to provide homeland defense for the entire North American continent. It also has a large-scale civil defense function, planning how the military might support civilian efforts during disasters, such as hurricanes, wildfires, civic unrest, and chemical or nuclear incidents.

"We are not there to take away control of a situation from local or state authorities, but to provide capability and capacity ... as part of the overall response," Miller said.

Karen Nolan is the opinion page editor at The Reporter in Vacaville, California. Email: opinion@ thereporter.com