Curbing Iraqi resistance with polls?

The U.S. military is planning a large polling and focus-group operation in Iraq over the next three years to help "build robust and positive relations with the people of Iraq and to assist the Iraqi people in forming a new government," according to a proposal seeking private contractors for the program.

The $15 million-a-year initiative will supplement the military's $100 million-a-year strategic communications operation, which aims to produce content for Iraqi media that will "engage and inspire" the population. The proposed polling contract, which has yet to be awarded, would centralize activities currently conducted by four different commands within Multi-National Force-Iraq and the Psychological Operations and Information Operations task forces.

As with the media activity, the fact that the polls and focus groups are financed by the U.S. military may not be revealed to participants. One provision of the contract solicitation prohibits the contractor or its personnel from disclosing "any aspects of the work performed under this contract, including the identity of the sponsor," unless approved by the military.

The size and scope of the program "will provide an extraordinary amount of data," said a former government official with experience in polling who reviewed the work statement attached to the contract solicitation. He spoke on the condition of anonymity because he is employed by a company doing business with the government. Another former official noted that $15 million is far more than the State Department allocates annually for its polling activities worldwide.

The expansion of military involvement in such activities, which were once the province of the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), is raising concerns not only on Capitol Hill but also inside the Defense Department.

Last week, House and Senate conferees said in their report on the fiscal 2009 defense appropriations bill that the Pentagon's enormous resources are upsetting the "appropriate balance of the civilian and military instruments of national security," adding that neither Pentagon interests nor national interests "are well served by this institutional shift of responsibility . . . from U.S. civilian agencies to the military."

 

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