Media use backfires on U.S.

Many ask if Pentagon altered information to make case for war


WASHINGTON -- Six months after U.S. troops arrived in Baghdad in April 2003, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld put his name on a 73-page directive to the U.S. military to employ the news media, public opinion and the Internet as a weapon of war.

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"I think the possibility's there ," said Rep. Walter Jones (R-N.C.), whose district runs adjacent to Army and Marine bases that have deployed tens of thousands of personnel to Iraq and Afghanistan. "We should have asked more questions before the war."

Rumsfeld and other top administration officials have vehemently denied misleading the public or using false information or intelligence to build the case against Iraq. But surveys suggest that the public has grown increasingly skeptical of the administration's case for war. A New York Times/CBS News poll last week found that 57 percent of those questioned said Congress is not asking enough questions about the administration's policies on Iraq.

On Capitol Hill, Jones is among many who have raised questions and launched inquiries into everything from the Pentagon's use of prewar intelligence to bolster the case for the war to the Defense Department's reliance on Washington public relations firms to shape the images and messages of war.