The House of Representatives moved Thursday to crack down on a Pentagon program that Democrats say planted false and overly optimistic news stories about the Iraq war, using military analysts who appeared regularly on television.
Acting on a 2009 defense policy bill, lawmakers forbade the Defense Department from engaging in "a concerted effort to propagandize" the American people over the war.
The amendment by Rep. Paul W. Hodes (D-N.H.), which passed by voice vote, also would force an investigation by the General Accounting Office of efforts to plant positive news stories about the war. The overall bill passed 384-23.
The action follows an April 20 New York Times article that described how the Pentagon promoted its positive view of the war by cultivating former military officers who became regulars on Fox News, CNN and the broadcast networks.
The report prompted outrage among war opponents, who called it just the latest example of the Bush administration's secretly trying to manipulate the media. Defenders of the war said the Pentagon merely tried to ensure that its views were understood by the retired officers, who have become a broadcast staple.
The Senate will not take up the defense policy bill until after next week's recess. Its version does not yet include language about the military analyst program.
The White House, citing concerns with other provisions of the overall legislation, has threatened a veto.
"The American people were spun by Bush administration 'message multipliers,' " Hodes said, using the Pentagon's term for the retired generals and colonels.
"They were fed administration talking points, believing they were getting independent military analysis."
Previous defense policy bills prohibited such "domestic propaganda," said Hodes, arguing that the restriction was even more critical now.
But Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Alpine) called it "ridiculous" to suggest that the retired officers had been part of a propaganda program. He called them "a great resource" who had given both positive and negative views of the war.
Rep. Paul Broun (R-Ga.) said the amendment could endanger benign "propaganda," such as the Marine Corps' recruiting slogan: "The Few, the Proud, the Marines."
The New York Times article was built, in part, on e-mails between the Pentagon and the analysts. The newspaper said those missives and interviews suggested "a symbiotic relationship in which the usual dividing lines between government and journalism have been obliterated."
