LATimes -- The Military's New War of Words

In a policy shift that reaches across all the armed services, Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld and his senior aides are revising missions and creating new agencies to make "information warfare" a central element of any U.S. war. Some hope it will eventually rank with bombs and artillery shells as an instrument of destruction.

...A summary of the strategic capabilities plan and a raft of other Pentagon and armed forces documents made available to The Times make it clear that the new approach now includes ...: the management of public information, efforts to control news media sources and manipulation of public opinion.

Both the Air Force and the Navy now list deception as one of five missions for information warfare, along with electronic attack, electronic protection, psychological . attacks and public affairs. A September draft of a new Air Force policy describes information warfare's goals as "destruction, degradation, denial, disruption, deceit, and exploitation." These goals are referred to collectively as "D5E."

In order to do a better job of deception, the joint chiefs have issued a "Joint Policy for Military Deception" that directs the individual services to work on the task in peacetime as well as wartime.

Hiram Johnson: "the first casualty, when war comes, is truth." The terrorists claim more victims - the truth and the beleivablity of the government lies bleeding on the American homeland.