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OAKLAND, California, (IPS) - As chaos continues
across much of Iraq, the governing authority is
coming to yet another crossroads.
Inside the Green Zone -- the location of the U.S.
Embassy and major Iraqi government offices --
officials are struggling to forge an acceptable
constitution by the August deadline. Outside the
relative safety of that enclave, the insurgency
continues apace as demonstrated by daily suicide
bombings and civilian casualties.
While the Shiite leaders of the government are
negotiating deals and solidifying ties with Iran,
and the Sunnis remain mostly disaffected from the
political process, the Kurds appear to have mastered
a dual strategy of participating in government
decisions while at the same time, taking matters
regarding their future into their own hands.
The generally efficient, if questionable, electoral
process not only turned out large numbers of voters,
but it also allowed Kurdish leader, Jalal Talabani,
to be selected as the country's president, insuring
close participation by the Kurds in all important
government deliberations.
In a parallel strategic track, however, the Kurdish
Regional Government appears to be keeping its
options open, recently hiring Russo Marsh & Rogers (RM&R)
-- a Sacramento, California-based public relations
firm with close ties to the Republican Party -- to
promote its interests.
Many political observers believe that the future of
Iraq may see a full-blown civil war or possible
partition. Investigative reporter Seymour Hersh
recently wrote in The New Yorker magazine that a
United Nations official involved in the elections
told him: ”The election was not an election but a
referendum on ethnic and religious identity. For the
Kurds, voting was about self-determination.”
”Our job” with the Kurds, RM&R's Joe Wierzbicki told
IPS, ”is to carry out a public relations campaign
that will thank the American people for supporting
the war in Iraq, and encourage Americans to visit
and invest in the Kurdish region.”
The project has not yet gotten underway and it is
unclear how long the contract will actually run.
”It's a short-term thing because they don't know how
long the public relations campaign might go,”
Wierzbicki said.
RM&R took on this work, he said, because ”of all the
different groups in Iraq that have a vision for the
future, the vision of the Kurds is closest to ours.
It's important to recognise that the Kurds are not
hostile to the West.”
In addition, ”their vision, belief system and values
-- they've had a democratic system in place for a
while -- parallel ours.”
No doubt, it's ”a very messy situation over there
and the country is trying to figure out its future.
The Kurds would like the rest of country to look at
the Kurdish region and see it as a model for the
rest of the country.”
Wierzbicki quickly added that they are definitely
”not advocating an independent Kurdistan.”
The ”war on terror” has been good to Russo Marsh &
Rogers. Shortly after 9/11, it supported a brief,
but nasty, campaign to unseat California
Representative Barbara Lee, after she had cast the
lone Congressional vote against giving Pres. George
W. Bush a blank cheque to pursue his war on
international terrorism.
Lee, who received numerous death threats and
received special condemnatory attention from David
Horowitz's Centre for the Study of Popular Culture,
was challenged by former Green Party State
Assemblywoman Audie Bock.
With the support of RM&R, Bock came out of the box
with the campaign slogan, ”It's OK to Love America.”
Completely misjudging the electorate in the Ninth
District, a district that was represented by Ron
Dellums, the longtime voice for anti-militarism and
social justice, Bock's campaign came to a crashing
halt in short order.
Before Russo Marsh & Rogers finalised the deal with
the Kurds, it had other business in Iraq to attend
to: handling the publicity for the ”Truth Tour,” a
seven-day carefully calibrated trip to Iraq by a
group of conservative radio talk-show hosts that was
intended to spread the ”good news” about what is
happening on the ground.
The tour was organised by Move America Forward (MAF),
an organisation that, according to the Washington
Post, owes much of its existence to the good offices
of Russo Marsh & Rogers. The Office of Media
Outreach, a taxpayer-funded publicity arm of the
Department of Defence, also sponsored the tour.
Move America Forward describes itself as ”a
non-profit, non-partisan organisation dedicated to
preserving our American heritage of freedom and
liberty.”
Its website pointed out that the purpose of the
”Truth Tour” was ”to report the good news on
Operation Iraqi Freedom you're not hearing from the
old line news media....to get the news straight from
our troops serving in Operation Iraqi Freedom,
including the positive developments and successes
they are achieving.”
Wierzbicki said that from ”the very beginning,” MAF
was the project of Howard Kaloogian, a former
California State Assemblyman, and Melanie Morgan,
the co-host of a morning show on KSFO-AM in San
Francisco, and that Sal Russo, the founder of Russo
Marsh & Rogers, ”helped set it in motion.”
Wierzbicki allowed that RM&R has done ”all of the
[group's] public relations stuff, press releases,
and radio and television ads that have been aired to
date.”
Move America Forward is currently soliciting
contributions to run an advertising campaign called
”Tortured Words,” a commercial aimed at countering
Illinois Democratic Senator Dick Durbin's recent
criticism of the conditions at the Guantanamo Bay
prison camp in Cuba. MAF intends to run the ads on
”major broadcast affiliates (NBC, ABC, CBS, Fox)
throughout Senator Durbin's home state of Illinois.”
In June 2004, eager to discredit Michael Moore's
award-winning documentary ”Fahrenheit 9/11” before
it hit the movie theaters, Russo Marsh & Rogers
collaborated with MAF to lead a campaign that urged
its supporters to ”Stop Michael Moore” by taking
”action against the release of his anti-American
movie Fahrenheit 9/11.”
Russo Marsh & Rogers' web site claims that, ”When it
comes to winning elections, few firms can match à
(its) success.”
By its own accounts, its record is impressive. It
maintains that it devised the campaign strategy that
allowed George Pataki, ”a little known State
Senator” from Peekskill, New York to defeat New
York's Governor Mario Cuomo.
RM&R also ”was hired by the California Republican
Party to help salvage a sagging campaign to pass
Proposition 209, the California Civil Rights
Initiative (also known as the anti-affirmative
action initiative) à. (and) in the weeks leading up
to Election Dayà. (it) produced an advertising
campaign which saved the initiative.”
RM&R's Wierzbicki was circumspect about exactly
which issues his firm would be handling. But
according to O'Dwyer's PR Daily, one of the chief
goals of Kurdish leaders is ”the return of Kirkuk,”
an oil-rich northern Iraqi city populated by Kurdish
and Turkmen people.
The struggle over Kirkuk could precipitate a major
conflict within Iraq. The public relations
campaign's launch date could come as soon as later
this summer or could be put off until the fall,
Wierzbicki said, and the campaign will would likely
feature television and print advertisements.
*Bill Berkowitz is a longtime observer of the
conservative movement. His WorkingForChange column
”Conservative Watch” documents the strategies,
players, institutions, victories and defeats of the
U.S. Right.
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