Bush-Appointed Panel Finds U.S. Image Abroad Is in Peril

[RamboLiberal]

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/01/politics/01DIPL.html?hp

The United States must drastically increase and overhaul its public relations efforts to salvage its plummeting image among Muslims and Arabs abroad, a panel chosen by the Bush administration has found.

"Hostility toward America has reached shocking levels," the panel stated in its report, which will be released Wednesday. "What is required is not merely tactical adaptation but strategic, and radical, transformation."

The report added that "spin" and manipulative public relations "are not the answer," but that neither is avoiding the debate. A copy of the report was made available Tuesday to The New York Times.

The panel warned that the war in Iraq and the intensified conflict in the Middle East had increased anger at the United States, and that people throughout the world were ignorant of or misinformed about American policies.