Fergie's Tech Blog

'A T-Shirt-and-Dagger Operation'

Scott Shane writes in The New York Times:

A DOCUMENTARY on Italian television on Tuesday accuses American forces of using white phosphorus shells in the assault on Falluja last year not just for nighttime illumination, their usual purpose, but to burn to death Iraqi insurgents and civilians. The mainstream American news media, whose reporters had witnessed the fighting and apparently seen no evidence of this, largely ignored the claim.

But on the Internet home page of the Open Source Center, a new American intelligence unit that keeps an eye on the global flood of nonsecret information, a report on the documentary was featured prominently.

"We posted it because it was getting significant play on the Web and in foreign media, which means it could influence public opinion," said Douglas J. Naquin, director of the center. The Web site - open to government workers and contractors - included links to the video and to foreign news reports about it from the BBC in London to The Daily Times in Pakistan.

posted by Fergie @ 11/13/2005 11:05:00 AM