Spin of the Week – PR Watch,  May 9, 2003

Iraqi National Congress Seeks Enhanced Credibility

‘Burson-Marsteller is working to enhance the credibility of the Iraqi National Congress as it seeks to establish itself as a legitimate force in postinvasion Iraq,’ writes the Holmes Report, a PR trade publication. ‘B-M has been working with the Congress, led by highprofile Iraqi exile Ahmed Chalabi, since 1999, under a state department contract. Chalabi and the Congress have close ties with the Bush administration, but some critics are concerned that their support within Iraq is shallow. “We’ve been the communications vehicle on the outside as the INC moved into northern Iraq, then to Nasiriya, and to Baghdad,” K. Riva Levinson, who heads the INC account for Burson out of Washington, told reporters. “We were helping the INC get out statements and videos that made clear that the exiled opposition was consolidating and moving. It’s been a tremendous ride for them and for us.”’

Source: The Holmes Report (www.holmesreport.com), May 5, 2003

More on Burson-Marsteller:

Corpwatch UK (www.corporatewatch.org.uk/profiles/burson/burson1.htm) writes, ‘Burson-Marsteller (B-M) is one of the largest public relations (PR) agencies in the world and also the most reviled due to its mercenary attitude in choosing clients and contracts, and its frequent run-ins with activists for environmental and other progressive causes. When helping its industry clients to escape environmental legislation or sprucing up the image of some of the most repressive governments on Earth, B-M brings to bear state of the art techniques in manipulating the mass media, legislators and public opinion.’

The company has represented deposed Romanian despot Nicolae Ceaucescu, the repressive Indonesian and Nigerian governments, Union Carbide after the Bhopal disaster, Monsanto, Phillip Morris and GlaxoSmithKline.

B-M was hired by the Saudi government immediately following 9/11 to spin that country’s complicity in the terrorist act. PR Watch’s Sheldon Rampon writes, ‘O’Dwyer’s PR Daily reported that Saudi Arabia hired PR giant Burson-Marsteller on September 14 to provide “issues counseling and crisis management” and to place ads in The New York Times expressing Saudi support for the U.S. in its time of crisis. The Saudis have been rewarded with a seat at the table as an ally in the fight against terrorism, even though much of Osama Bin Laden’s terror network (including Bin Laden himself and 15 of the 19 hijackers who flew the planes on September 11) came from Saudi Arabia and drew their inspiration and funding specifically from Saudi Arabian Wahhabi fundamentalists. The Wahhabi religious movement is the state religion of Saudi Arabia, the ideological underpinnings of the absolute monarchy which governs the country with an iron fist. Human rights groups such as Amnesty International have pointed to Saudi Arabia’s numerous cases of arbitrary arrest, prolonged detention and physical abuse of prisoners, which security forces commit with the acquiescence of the government. In addition, the government prohibits or restricts freedom of speech, the press, assembly, association, and religion.’

Source: www.guerrillanews.com/media/doc1876.html

Spin of the Week comes at PR Watch (www.prwatch.org), a Wisconsin-based non-profit organization that reports on the public relations industry and the role of the media in democracy.