Coalition Information Center

The Coalition Information Center (CIC) was the Bush administration's "'rapid response' team", "created to wage the propaganda war" against Osama bin Laden, Martha Brant reported in Newsweek, November 12, 2001.

• After the September 11, 2001 attack, Karen P. Hughes, counselor to President George W. Bush, "launched a quick-response war room at the White House to counter the Taliban's anti-American propaganda." [1]
• "In October 2001, Hughes worked with PR specialist John Rendon to create the Coalition Information Center (CIC), which Laura Flanders describes as a 'fast-response network [with offices in Washington, London, and Islamabad] set up to respond to anti-US news that appears anywhere in the world.' ... 'It will take probably 10 or 15 or even 20 years for the kind of campaign we are talking about to have an effect,' Hughes said at the time. 'We have not done a very good job in America over the past 20 or 30 years of explaining our values to the rest of the world and talking about the values we have in common. And we're obviously behind.'" [2]
• "When it became apparent that the United States and Britain were not winning the public relations battle in the Middle East, the White House established the Coalition Information Center, with offices in Washington, London and Pakistan, to react in real time to breaking news and present the American side of the conflict to Mideast viewers." [3]

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Controlling the Story

"A little-noticed but critical component of the war on terrorism operates beneath lamp-bearing cherubs in a building next door to the White House. There, amid message boards that list upcoming events and clocks that display the time in Washington, London, Afghanistan and Pakistan, the Coalition Information Center has a mission nearly as important as winning the war: controlling the story," Judy Keen reported December 18, 2001, in USA Today.

"The public-relations operation stretches from downtown Washington to London, Islamabad and Kabul, where people are stationed to help choreograph foreign reporters' perspectives on the war. 'We've learned that you either start the news wave or you're swamped by it,' says Jim Wilkinson, a White House communications aide who runs the center," Keen wrote.

"The Global War on Terrorism: The First 100 Days"

"The White House's Coalition Information Center, the office charged with drumming up support for the War on Terror both at home and abroad," released the "official report card on the administration's efforts to date" -- "The Global War on Terrorism: The First 100 Days" -- on December 20, 2001.

About CIC

• Three Coalition Information Centers: Washington, DC; London; and Islamabad, Pakistan, working together to "help serve the President and coalition partners in their efforts to communicate to the world about the war on terrorism." [4]

• Washington: Jim Wilkinson
• London: Tucker Eskew, White House Director of Media Affairs
• Pakistan: Greg Jenkins, White House representative

• "The State Department works closely with Al Jazeera and other middle east media outlets. We are working to get as many US officials on these outlets to help tell our story about the war against terrorism." [5]

Notes

"Ambassador Kenton W. Keith, the U.S. State Department's Special Envoy to Islamabad from November 2001 to January 2002, ... set up the Coalition Information Center in Pakistan following the September 11 terrorist attacks and served as spokesperson on Coalition activity in Afghanistan." Keith served as "U.S. Ambassador to Qatar from 1992-95." [6]

• State Department (Free Republic), November 20, 2001: "The U.S. Embassy in Islamabad opened a Coalition Information Center. Kenton Keith served as the Center's director."

SourceWatch Resources

• Department of State "rapid response office"
• Downing Street documents
• embedded
• Jessica Lynch
• Office of Global Communications
• Office of Strategic Influence
• Rendon Group
• Undersecretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs
• war propaganda
• White House Iraq Group

Reports

• Ari Fleischer, White House News Briefing, February 5, 2001.
• "Al Qaeda and Taliban Atrocities," As released November 11, 2001, by CIC/Islamabad.
• Fact Sheet: Al Qaeda & Taliban: The Making of a Humanitarian Disaster, Released November 28, 2001, by the White House Coalition Information Center.
• "Raw Data: War on Terror, First 100 Days," Fox News, December 20, 2001.
• Sam Gardiner, "The Truth from These Podia. Summary of a Study of Strategic Influence, Perception Management, Strategic Information Warfare and Strategic Psychological Operations in Gulf II," US News & World Report, October 8, 2003.

External Links

2001

• "Winds of War Sweep Into White House," Associated Press, September 19, 2001.
• Martha Brant, "Bush's New War Room," Newsweek, November 12, 2001.
• Jim Wilkinson, "America At War: The White House," Washington Post, December 10, 2001.
• Judy Keen, "Information ' war room' deploys its own troops," USA Today, December 18, 2001.
• James Carney and John F. Dickerson, "Inside The War Room. Relying on instinct, and trusting his team, George W. Bush unleashed a new kind of war against a new kind of enemy--and faster than you might have guessed," CNN Inside Politics, December 24, 2001.

2002

• Elizabeth Becker and James Dao, "Bush Will Keep Wartime Office Promoting U.S.," New York Times (InfoShop News), February 20, 2002: "President Bush has decided to transform the administration's temporary wartime communications effort into a permanent office of global diplomacy to spread a positive image of the United States around the world and combat anti-Americanism."
• Mike Allen, "White House Angered at Plan For Pentagon Disinformation," Washington Post, February 25, 2002.
• Robert K. Ackerman, "Technology Empowers Information Operations in Afghanistan," Signal Magazine, March 2002.
• Audrey Woods, "Anti-terrorism coalition progress report notes threats could prompt military action," Associated Press (SF Gate), March 11, 2002.

2003

• Will Femia, "Point man on the war on terror. Jim Wilkinson, White House communications strategist, answers your questions," MSNBC, February 21, [2003].
• Jeffrey Steinberg, "Behind the Iraq Dossier Hoax: Intelligence Was Cooked in Israel," Executive Intelligence Review, February 21, 2003.
• John Hughes, "Why America's story needs to be sent overseas," Christian Science Monitor, April 3, 2003.
• Gar Smith, "America's Ministry of Propaganda Exposed -- Part One," Environmentalists Against the War, December 23, 2003.

2004

• Carl Conetta, "Disappearing the Dead. Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Idea of a 'New Warfare'," Project on Defense Alternatives Research Monograph #9, February 18, 2004.