WASHINGTON, D.C. – Sen. John Kerry announced today that Congress passed his legislation to prohibit the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) from funding propaganda. Kerry’s legislation was a companion measure to Rep. Paul Hodes’ (D-N.H.) amendment passed in the House. In April, Sen. Kerry called for an investigation by the GAO into the DOD’s covert efforts to cultivate military analysts with distinguished service records to produce favorable press coverage of the Bush Administration’s wartime policies in Iraq and elsewhere.

Sens. John Kerry and Olympia Snowe, along with Sens. Robert Menendez, Frank Lautenberg, and Hillary Clinton, had introduced the amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act.

Media reports assert that the DOD gave scores of retired military officers serving as media analysts special access to classified information, private briefings, and trips to Iraq and Guantanamo in exchange for promoting the Administration’s wartime policies before news outlets. Many of these retired military officers are employed by military contractors or act as defense lobbyists with current or future business pending with DOD. According to Media Matters, military analysts made 4,500 press appearances to produce systematic propaganda in defense of the Administration’s war in Iraq and elsewhere.

“Americans must be able to trust that defense contractors secure government contracts based on how well they protect our soldiers, not how closely they follow Pentagon talking points,” said Sen. Kerry. “We’re going to make sure that taxpayer money isn’t used to peddle propaganda on the American people.”

“In a free and democratic society, our government should never use the public airwaves to propagandize our citizens,” said Congressman Hodes. “Congress cannot allow any Administration regardless of party to manipulate the public with false propaganda and information on matters of war and our national security. I urge President Bush to sign this ban into law and finally give the American people the truth into what extent independent military analysts manipulating public opinion in the lead up to and execution of the War in Iraq.”

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