The media may not be aware of it, but the Bush administration
has a good story to tell about its efforts to democratize and
pacify the Middle East. The complainers may dominate the headlines,
but millions of Afghanis and Iraqis are glad that Uncle Sam
expelled the Taliban and ended Saddam's brutal regime.
Yet images of American GIs grinning over Iraqi prisoner pyramids
could well become the symbol for U.S. military involvement in the
region, much as the picture of a blindfolded American hostage in
Iran dogged the Carter administration. Even the editors of National
Review magazine, normally friendly to the administration, have
pointed to a weakness in international communications, a.k.a.
public diplomacy.
Over the past year, the Bush administration has ignored fundamental
principles of public relations (or public affairs, as it's called
in government) that could have prevented the scandal at Abu Ghraib
-- and could help it respond to questions over missing weapons of
mass destruction.
For one thing, the administration chose press agentry over two-way
communication. It should have been identifying the interests and
concerns of various American and international audiences --
including Iraqis, detainees and their families -- whose consensus
is needed to liberate and pacify Iraq.
Instead, officials opted for publicity management -- issuing news
releases, checking camera angles and keeping spokesmen on message.
Such tactics are fine for political campaigns when there is little
time to develop a relationship with various audiences. But it does
little to foster public understanding that can outlast temporary
negative news.
Unfortunately, the publicist mentality guides public affairs and
dominates decision-making at the upper echelons of this government.
In the "Bush 41" administration, access to decision-makers was
managed to reward friendly journalists and keep hostile ones at
bay.
The Clinton era brought in the notorious "war room" spin machine to
trumpet achievements and blunt the effects of White House scandals.
With the current Bush administration, public affairs and public
diplomacy activities seem aimed at feeding positive news stories to
the media more than developing consensus at home or abroad.
A half-century ago, communications pioneer Edward Bernays described
public relations as an ombudsman function between the client and
the public, "a special pleader before the court of public opinion."
His seminal books on the subject stressed the need to pinpoint
various audiences and develop two-way communication with them using
multiple channels to link an organization's activities to its
interests.
In Iraq, apparently, no one thought that detainees or their
families might be such an audience. Moreover, it seems no one
expected prisoner treatment to fall under the spotlight of public
scrutiny in a country that had no government or laws and was
occupied by a foreign army.
Second, the administration seems caught in a reactive mode with
respect to communications. As a result, public affairs officers
neglect to look ahead for potential problems that could jeopardize
the overall mission.
Whether military public affairs officers even knew what was going
on last year in the Abu Ghraib prison remains to be seen.
Understandably, military and civilian public affairs officers in
Iraq have had to respond to non-stop queries and prepare for
endless press conferences. But they should have been included in
discussion of the problems in coalition prisons and counseled on
what the impact might be if they became public.
Finally, the administration neglected to reveal bad news as
quickly and completely as possible -- a basic rule in corporate
public affairs and a key concept in military public-affairs
doctrine.
In the prison crisis, the passage of time led to a dilemma typical
in cases of internal troubles: whether to acknowledge them as
information started leaking or to keep things under wraps so as not
to prejudice possible criminal proceedings. Unfortunately, time is
never on the side of secrecy. Stories eventually hit the streets,
public emotions drive events and outside institutions such as
Congress become involved.
It's a sad day when America's president has to apologize to the
world for the irresponsible actions of employees in his chain of
command. But awareness of various public concerns, early warning of
internal problems and a willingness to disclose what is being done
to correct them are proven ways to maintain consensus for the
administration's actions and confidence in its decisions.
Stephen Johnson is a senior policy analyst and Helle Dale is
director of foreign policy and defense studies at The Heritage
Foundation (heritage.org).
Distributed nationally on the Knight-Ridder Tribune wire