Scientific Applications International Corporation

Scientific Applications International Corporation is a Fortune 500 corporation which amongst other things is a leading suplier of propaganda, psychological operations and information warfare for the US military and others.

The new TV service for Iraq was paid for by the Pentagon. In keeping with the philosophy of information dominance it was supplied, not by an independent news organization, but by a defense contractor, Scientific Applications International Corporation (SAIC). Its expertise in the area -- according to its Web site -- is in "information operations" and "information dominance."

The SAIC effort ran into trouble. The Iraqi exile journalists it employed for the Iraq Media Network (IMN) -- at a cost US$20 million over three months -- were too independent for the Coalition Provisional Authority. Within weeks, occupying authority chief Paul Bremer introduced controls on the IMN. He also closed down some Iraqi-run newspapers and radio and TV stations. According to Index on Censorship, IMN managers were told to drop the readings from the Koran, the vox-pops (usually critical of the US invasion) and even to run their content past the wife of a US-friendly Iraqi Kurdish leader for a pre-broadcast check. The station rejected the demands.

But this did not stop Bremer and further incidents culminated in a nine-point list of "prohibited activity" issued in June last year.

Bremer would reserve the power to advise the IMN on any aspect of its performance, including matters of content and the power to hire and fire staff. Thus, as Index on Censorship notes "the man in absolute authority over the country's largest, richest and best-equipped media network is also his own regulator and regulator of his rivals, with recourse to the US Army to enforce his rulings."