Australian "reporter" killed in Iraq was also working for Pentagon

[Democat]

When is a reporter not a reporter?

Who remembers Paul Moran, a television cameraman on assignment for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation in northern Iraq? He was killed March 22, 2003 by a suicide car bomb at a PUK checkpoint by an alleged member of Ansar al-Islam.

It seems there may have been more to Moran than meets the eye. In addition to his work as a cameraman, he was also “a self-described crusader for the Kurdish people in northern Iraq.” He helped an Iraqi scientist and his family defect. And most important, as the obituary in his hometown paper, the Adelaide Advertiser, notes, he was also involved in work for the Rendon Group, an American public relations firm.

Who is the Rendon Group? Stauber and Rampton reveal that in October 2001, the Pentagon awarded the Rendon Group a $397,000 contract “to handle PR aspects of the U.S. military strike in Afghanistan.” They further write that in February 2002, the New York Times reported that the Pentagon was using the Rendon Group to help it with the Office of Strategic Influence (OSI). You remember that office, don’t you? It was the the office the DoD hastily — and noisily — disbanded after the Times reported that it would provide foreign reporters with “news items, possibly even false ones.” The Office was met with outrage by journalistic organizations around the world.

Rendon’s contract wasn’t cancelled, however, the authors say. “Let me just say that we have a confidentiality/nondisclosure agreement in place” with the DoD, said company spokeswoman Jeanne Sklarz.

http://www.back-to-iraq.com/archives/000449.php

[mhr]

1. When He is a CIA Operative

working under cover!

Seems pretty clear to me that the reporter story was his cover!