How Much Does the Pentagon Spend on Overseas Propaganda? Who Knows?

Saturday, October 17, 2009

When the Defense Department first submitted its budget request to fund American military propaganda campaigns, it asked Congress for $988 million. After the House chopped the budget in half, Pentagon officials begged lawmakers to reconsider—and admitted that they really only needed $626 million. The inflation of almost $300 million in the original ask did not sit well with Democrats and Republicans.

 
Congressman John Murtha (D-PA), who chairs the defense appropriations subcommittee, and who knows a thing or two about inflated expenditures, remarked to Politico: “The information war is off to a bad start with bad information.” He later added: “I just don’t like the idea that the military is in the propaganda business.”
 
If Congress does approve $626 million for the Pentagon’s secretive Information Operations program, that amount would represent a dramatic increase over what was spent just two years ago. The 2007 budget was $244.6 million.
 
The Defense Department intends to get every dollar it can out of Congress for the propaganda campaigns, and it is enlisting help from the State Department to lobby lawmakers.
-Noel Brinkerhoff
 
Rumsfeld’s Roadmap to Propaganda (National Security Archive)

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