A Pentagon office responsible for coordinating Defense Department information campaigns overseas has been abolished in an effort by the Obama administration to distance itself from past practices that some military officers called propaganda, senior officials said Wednesday.
Military and civilian critics said the office, the Defense Department office for support to public diplomacy, overstepped its mandate during the final years of the Bush administration by trying to organize information operations that violated Pentagon guidelines for accuracy and transparency.
Pentagon officials said the position of deputy assistant secretary of defense for support to public diplomacy had been eliminated, with the staff members reassigned and the office closed.
"American military officers in Afghanistan in particular were angered last year by sets of 'talking points' provided by the office for use in responding to queries on matters like civilian casualties," NYT reports. "Officers who received the talking points predicted that the information would be seen by the Afghan public as blatant propaganda, and they refused to use them." The official announcement of closure has yet to be made.
President Obama has a mixed record on distancing himself from Bush policies, so any move away from Cheney's "dark side" is pretty welcome.
