Army's New Fear: Media's Friendly Fire

McChrystal's Fall Following Magazine Article Sends Shudders, Though Strategy Dictates Good Relations With the Press

By PETER SPIEGEL
June 25, 2010
Courtesy Of "The Wall Street Journal"


WASHINGTON—According to U.S. military doctrine, in order to defeat an insurgency like the one in Afghanistan, commanders must engage with the news media to win the hearts and minds of both the local population and the American public.

Reuters

A Marine takes fire in Afghanistan, near a photojournalist embedded with his unit. U.S. strategy calls for working closely with the media.

But in the wake of the firing of Gen. Stanley McChrystal as Afghan commander over intemperate remarks to Rolling Stone magazine, Pentagon officials are concerned the military may recoil in fear and anger from the press.

The chill couldn't come at a more inopportune time for the Pentagon's leadership, with skepticism about the war's progress growing among U.S. politicians and officials in Afghanistan ahead of what is likely to be the war's most important operation, the imminent move by thousands of U.S. forces into Kandahar, the spiritual heartland of the Taliban.

"If we recoil, if we go underground, if we get defensive, it's self-defeating," said Geoff Morrell, the Pentagon press secretary. "We need to remain as engaged as ever, if not more so because we are at a crucial point in this war."

Even before Gen. McChrystal's ouster, senior defense officials had been contemplating an overhaul of their communications strategy to get top officers in the war zone to brief reporters more frequently, a strategy regularly employed during the Iraq surge three years ago.

Defense officials described the effort as an attempt to keep Washington-based reporters regularly informed of operations in Afghanistan amid concerns that news coverage was increasingly providing narrowly focused snapshots of insurgent violence in southern Afghanistan.

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At a news conference this week, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said he has repeatedly told top brass that "the media is not the enemy" and it "would be a mistake" to allow Gen. McChrystal's firing to affect the Pentagon's relationship with the press, which has improved significantly since Mr. Gates succeeded Donald Rumsfeld as Pentagon chief.

The push to ensure the military stays engaged with the press is, in part, a reflection of an overhaul in counterinsurgency doctrine that took place four years ago, under the aegis of Gen. David Petraeus, the new commander in Afghanistan who at the time headed the Army's network of internal think tanks and war colleges.

The revised counterinsurgency field manual makes clear that in order to win a guerrilla war—where insurgents use media coverage of bombings and attacks to sow fear amidst the local population—U.S. commanders need to spend significant time and resources informing civilians of what they are doing.

"The media is a permanent part of the information environment," said Maj. Gen. John Campbell, commander of allied forces in eastern Afghanistan. "If we don't help the media get this word out, they may develop their own stories that may be inaccurate and this would have a negative impact on our COIN," he added, using the military acronym for counterinsurgency.

The field manual states that so-called "information operations" may often be the "decisive" line of operation a war commander oversees.

"Effective commanders directly engage in a dialogue with the media and communicate command themes and messages personally," the field manual dictates. "Clear, accurate portrayals can improve the effectiveness and morale of counterinsurgents, reinforce the will of the U.S. public, and increase popular support for the [local] government."

U.S. defense officials in Washington and Kabul warn that relations could be in for a rocky period, particularly since under Gen. McChrystal, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization headquarters in Kabul had become far more open to reporters than even the U.S. embassy there.

At the military headquarters, reporters have been welcomed and courted, given long briefings by senior officers and allowed to sit in on classified briefings.

Rear Adm. Gregory Smith, who oversees all communications for the Kabul headquarters, acknowledged there is likely to be some reluctance now from commanders to engage with reporters, particularly on the extended "embeds" that have become a staple of war reporting in Iraq and Afghanistan. But he insisted the headquarters will continue to encourage field commanders to host embeds.

"I'm sure that there will be military folks now that will shy away from the media; this was our culture years ago," added Maj. Gen. Campbell. "But I know it is an important element of COIN and will do my best to continue to foster those relationships."

Gen. Petraeus is expected to seek to keep the command relatively open, a policy he instituted as commander in Iraq.

Gen. Petraeus will likely "strive to set the same tone on dealing with the press that...[was] established in Baghdad," said a senior military official involved in Afghan policy.

—Maria Abi-Habib and Matthew Rosenberg in Kabul contributed to this article.


Write to Peter Spiegel at peter.spiegel@wsj.com