Bush Loyalists Pack Coalition Press Office in Iraq

By JIM KRANE, AP

BAGHDAD, Iraq (April 4) - Inside the marble-floored palace hall that serves
as the press office of the U.S.-led coalition, Republican Party operatives lead
a team of Americans who promote mostly good news about Iraq.

Dan Senor, a former press secretary for Spencer Abraham, the Michigan
Republican who's now Energy Secretary, heads the office packed with former Bush
campaign workers, political appointees and ex-Capitol Hill staffers.

One-third of the U.S. civilian workers in the press office have GOP ties,
running an enterprise that critics see as an outpost of Bush's re-election effort
with Iraq a top concern. Senor and others inside the coalition say they
follow strict guidelines that steer clear of politics.

One of the main goals of the Office of Strategic Communications - known as
stratcom - is to ensure Americans see the positive side of the Bush
administration's invasion, occupation and reconstruction of Iraq, where 600 U.S. soldiers
have died and a deadly insurgency thrives.

''Beautification Plan for Baghdad Ready to Begin,'' one press release in late
March said in its headline. Another statement last month cautioned, ''The
Reality is Nothing Like What You See on Television.''

Senor, spokesman for the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority, said his
office is guided by ethical ''red lines'' that prevent it from crossing into
the Bush campaign.

''We have an obligation to communicate with the U.S. Congress and the
American people, given that they're spending almost $20 billion in Iraq and have
committed over 100,000 U.S. troops here,'' Senor said in an interview with The
Associated Press.

Earlier in his career, after Hebrew University and Harvard Business School,
Senor was with the Carlyle Group, an investment firm with Bush family ties and
big defense industry holdings. Senor jogged in a Thanksgiving Day race here
wearing a ''Bush-Cheney 2004'' T-shirt.

Known as the Green Room, the press office is inside coalition headquarters in
the Republican Palace that used to belong to Saddam Hussein. The palace is in
central Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone.

The office counts 21 Republicans - 11 of whom have worked inside the Bush
administration before their Iraq posting - among its 58 U.S. civilian staffers,
according to figures Senor provided.

More than half a dozen CPA officials in the press office worked on Bush's
2000 presidential campaign or are related to Bush campaign workers, according to
payroll records filed with the Federal Elections Commission.

Republican figures also permeate the wider CPA staff, including top advisers
to U.S. administrator L. Paul Bremer and the Iraqi ministries.

The U.S. team stands in deep contrast to the British team that works
alongside it, almost all of whom are civil or foreign service employees, not political
appointees. Many of the British in Iraq display regional knowledge or
language skills that most of the Americans lack.

The drive to re-elect Bush is a sensitive topic. Several coalition officials
angered by what they see as CPA politicking - with U.S. accomplishments in
Iraq being trumpeted to help Bush - grumbled privately, but would not go on
record with complaints.

But Gordon Robison, a former CPA contractor who helped build the
Pentagon-funded Al-Iraqiya television station in Baghdad, said Republicans in the press
room intensely followed the Democratic presidential primaries as John Kerry
emerged as the presumed nominee.

''Iraq is in danger of costing George W. Bush his presidency and the CPA's
media staff are determined to see that does not happen,'' Robison said. ''I had
the impression in dealing with the civilians in the Green Room that they
viewed their job as essentially political, promoting what the Coalition Provisional
Authority is doing in Iraq as a political arm of the Bush administration,''
he added.

Robison, a journalist who said his political affiliation is a private matter,
left Baghdad in March after finishing his contract with U.S. defense
contractor Science Applications International Corp. A new U.S. contractor, Harris
Corp., has taken over the Al-Iraqiya operations.

One CPA staffer who spoke on condition of anonymity said the press office had
sent targeted ''good news'' releases to American television, radio and
newspaper outlets that were timed to deflect criticism of Bush during the Democratic
primaries.

Stratcom's schedule of news releases shows that stories were sent to media
outlets in Florida, Ohio, Illinois, Tennessee and Virginia and other states in
the days before their Democratic primaries. But the schedule also shows
releases sent to Virginia, Ohio and Florida after the primaries were over. Senor said
any correlation to the vote was a coincidence.

Rich Galen, 57, a well-known Republican strategist, oversees the daily news
releases sent directly to media outlets in the United States. Before joining
the CPA press operation late last year, Galen wrote a GOP insider column and
appeared on Fox News to harpoon liberal critics of Bush.

Now, he's still writing an Internet column, but he's turned it into what he
calls a travelogue about Iraq. And he still appears on Fox - but long-distance
via satellite and as a CPA spokesman.

Galen has been press secretary for both former House Speaker Newt Gingrich
and former Vice President Dan Quayle during their careers. Galen's 27-year-old
son, Reed, is involved in the Bush re-election effort.

Since arriving in Iraq, Galen said he has made sure not to veer into politics
in his work in the Green Room, in his column or during his television
appearances.

''I understand when the game clock is on and when the game clock is off,''
Galen said. ''The clock is off.''

Were he to get directly involved in the Bush campaign, Galen said he'd be far
more effective working at an office in Virginia outside of Washington D.C.
than from the Iraqi capital. ''It's as inefficient a way to run a campaign as I
can imagine,'' he said of being in Baghdad.

Outside political analysts, however, said Galen's vast expertise lies in
political campaigning, not shipping radio and TV spots to local audiences. Putting
a sharp strategist like him in the press room is a campaign masterstroke,
said Bob Boorstin of the Center for American Progress, a nonpartisan political
think-tank in Washington.

''You know they're in trouble if they shipped Rich Galen over there,'' said
Boorstin, who worked on four presidential campaigns, all Democratic.

''They're desperate to control the story over there. It's a very smart thing
on their part. He knows what he's doing.''

Still, Boorstin said the shaping of the American message out of Iraq should
come as no surprise. The rigors of election year politics demand the best
possible portrayal of key policies, and Bush has staked his presidency on the
notion that he's a war president.

''There's some deep questions about whether (the U.S. invasion) was a good
idea. Wherever and whenever they can, Bush's political people are manipulating
whatever they can,'' he said.

''Is that a surprise? No. Would Democrats do it? Yes. But it's particularly
noxious because people's lives are on the line.''

(Associated Press Writer Aparna H. Kumar contributed to this report from
Washington.)

AP-NY-04-04-04 1358EDT

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