April 21, 2008: New York Times Reporter Details Two Years of Legal Delays in Learning about Pentagon Propaganda Operation

New York Times reporter David Barstow discusses his recent article about the Pentagon’s covert propaganda operation using “independent military analysts” to shape public opinion about the Iraq war (see April 20, 2008 and Early 2002 and Beyond). Barstow explains that the Times took “so long” to report the program because “it took us two years to wrestle 8,000 pages of documents out of the Defense Department that described its interactions with network military analysts.” The Pentagon refused to turn over any documents until losing in federal court; even then, it failed to meet a number of court-ordered deadlines to produce the documents. It was only after the judge in the case threatened to sanction the department that the Pentagon finally turned over the documents. [New York Times, 4/21/2008]