On the P.R. Battlefield

By DOUGLAS WALLER

The U.S. Special Operations Command, which Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has given the lead role in the global war on terrorism, doesn't just have gun-toting commandos out launching attacks. For the past six months, it has been dispatching two- to four-person teams of psychological warriors to the Pentagon's overseas commands, armed with plans for pro-U.S. advertising campaigns to counter propaganda from enemies, including Islamic extremists. The teams are part of a new unit called the Joint Psyops Support Element (JPSE), nicknamed "gypsy."

Based at the command's Tampa, Fla., headquarters, the JPSE unit has 38 psychological-operations experts (plus a graphic artist and videographer for film editing), a team that is expected to grow to 113 by 2006, with a projected budget of $77.5 million over the next seven years. JPSE director Jim Treadwell told Time he eventually wants to send those units into Europe, the Middle East, Asia and Latin America, where they would produce commercial-quality television ads, radio spots, websites and printed material to burnish the U.S.'s image in those regions. JPSE hopes to award $250,000 contracts next week to as many as four U.S. multimedia companies to develop prototype ad campaigns. Says Treadwell, a former Army psyops colonel: "I want to be as creative as possible."

JPSE's work could meet resistance, however. Three years ago, the Pentagon shut down its Office of Strategic Influence amid press reports that the unit, whose staff included psyops experts, was mulling a scheme to plant false news items with foreign journalists to sway opinion overseas. The allegations turned out to be unfounded. Senior Administration officials suspect they may have been leaked by military public-affairs officers jealous over turf. But Rumsfeld disbanded the organization anyway, complaining that the negative publicity compromised its effectiveness. The JPSE director insists that his group will not engage in deception. Says Treadwell: "We are always going to tell the truth."

--By Douglas Waller