Pentagon terminates controversial contract with The Rendon Group.
Pentagon terminates controversial contract with The Rendon Group.
Last week, Stars and Stripes revealed that the Pentagon had contracted The Rendon Group to screen journalists seeking to embed with U.S. forces. Rendon was rating whether reporters were giving the military “positive” coverage. Journalism groups immediately criticized the arrangement, calling it “alarming.” One week later, the Pentagon has announced that it is canceling the contract with Rendon:
“The decision to terminate the Rendon contract was mine and mine alone. As the senior U.S. communicator in Afghanistan, it was clear that the issue of Rendon’s support to US forces in Afghanistan had become a distraction from our main mission,” said Rear Adm. Gregory J. Smith, in an e-mail sent Sunday to Stars and Stripes.
“I have been here since early June and at no time has anyone who worked for me ever conducted themselves in a manner as your newspaper alleged. I cannot and will not speculate on the past, although I have found no systemic issues with fairness or equity in the way U.S. forces have run their media embed program.”
Although military officials denied using Rendon’s work to reject reporters wishing to embed with U.S. troops, a public affairs officer with the 101st Airborne Division said that “when his unit was in Afghanistan and in charge of the Rendon contract, he had used the conclusions contained in Rendon profiles in part to reject at least two journalists’ applications for embeds.”
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Rendon is an unscrupulous person and should never be in any position to spout his propaganda ever again.
August 30th, 2009 at 11:12 pmI and my friends could do a better job than those crooks, and for a fraction of the price. Far too many of these repiggie firms have an incestuous relationship with the very government which they deride and scorn constantly.
Perhaps it is high time for progressive outsiders to start opening for business in D.C.
Could we do any worse of a job than these fiction spinners?
And we could probably bring the price down substantially, without compromising the integrity of the work.
August 30th, 2009 at 11:17 pmKudoes to Stars and Stripes for blowing the whistle on these creeps and running them off the base! Was it deliberate on their part?
I wonder how Rendon would have judged Bill Mauldin’s Willy and Joe characters back in ‘43 and ‘44? They looked tired and haggard and fretted over the small indignities of being a combat infantryman. Not good PR for the military, so various generals (including Patton) thought about censoring them, but Stars and Stripes ran them right through the war.
August 30th, 2009 at 11:22 pmWell that’s a start……now Blackwater….
August 30th, 2009 at 11:31 pmThe U.S. military command in Afghanistan plans to terminate its $1.5 million contract with a public relations firm for services that include assessing journalists’ work before embedding them with troops, a Pentagon spokesman said Sunday.
Rear Adm. Gregory Smith, the top military spokesman in Afghanistan, said he decided to end the contract because it was becoming a distraction, Stars and Stripes reported on its website. Bryan Whitman, a Pentagon spokesman, confirmed Smith’s decision and referred questions to commanders in Kabul.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/military/2009-08-30-rendon-afghan-embeds_N.htm
August 30th, 2009 at 11:39 pmJust like in the Tillman friendly-fire death, the Pentagon investigated itself–and found no evidence of wrongdoing.
Yawn.
August 30th, 2009 at 11:49 pmlittle by little bush policies are getting changed. May not seem like a lot but it’s “one”.
August 31st, 2009 at 12:06 amI’m not sure why journalists even pretend to care, since they’re going to say whatever the military wants them to say anyway.
August 31st, 2009 at 1:04 amExactly. I don’t think we’ll ever know the gull scale of the mess Bush left to Obama. It may take Obama a whole term to clean it up.
August 31st, 2009 at 2:13 am“gull scale”? Interesting. ;)
August 31st, 2009 at 2:21 amhttp://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/8798997/the_man_who_sold_the_war/
Rendon, perception manager, BS artist. Millions in contracts since 1991. Bush Sr.,1991, made a finding for regime change in Iraq. The Result was Rendon who planted stories…with the help of one Judy Miller.
August 31st, 2009 at 6:48 amOT
Interesting that Japan has voted it’s conservative party out and are left with a “mountain of problems”
Seems to be a theme.
Link
August 31st, 2009 at 7:57 amAs to the comment of iamwhoiam: ” I don’t think we’ll ever know the (f)ull scale of the mess Bush left to Obama. It may take Obama a whole term to clean it up.”
At the rate Obama is going the sun will go dark before Bush’s steaming piles are cleaned up.
August 31st, 2009 at 7:58 amfalco, you act like he’s been cutting brush since he got elected:
Just the first 100 days:
Consider the new hospital records system, for example. The Bush Administration had 8 years to clean up this big mess but didn’t get anything done. Under Obama, a new system is already underway. And, of course, he has done wonderful work starting to repair the sullied image of the United States around the world.
for more on just his first 100 days:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/04/29/obamas-first-100-days-10_n_192603.html
August 31st, 2009 at 8:13 amIf it were up to me, I would investigate every contract Bush was involved with.
August 31st, 2009 at 8:26 amHey check out the new legislation coming out of the house that our bought and sold senators are going kill and our puppet president is going to veto.
Rep. Frank and Ron Paul eyes Fed audit, emergency lending curbs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J2DX9Iu4wNo
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090830/pl_nm/us_usa_fed_audits;_ylt=AnopcuRicZIZhAV0hbHf9Gwa.3QA;_ylu=X3oDMTJvczBpMG9iBGFzc2V0A25tLzIwMDkwODMwL3VzX3VzYV9mZWRfYXVkaXRzBHBvcwMxMQRzZWMDeW5fcGFnaW5hdGVfc3VtbWFyeV9saXN0BHNsawNmdWxsbmJzcHN0b3I-
August 31st, 2009 at 8:42 amantichrist,
You gonna spam that on every thread because I am going to flag you for spam now just to save time.
August 31st, 2009 at 8:48 amHmmmmmmm my post doesn’t seem to be right wing partisan. Why the quick swift outrage and action? (LMAO) I really thought my comment would be deleted hahaaaaaaaa
August 31st, 2009 at 9:02 amYour post is off topic and you spammed it.
August 31st, 2009 at 9:03 amif there was an anti-christ, I doubt it would be here on TP demonstrating its ignorance
August 31st, 2009 at 9:09 amLevi @ 15 says:
You nailed it, ALL of the Bush era contracts need to be audited and either revoked or allowed to expire.
The privatization of government and military services is a dangerous precedent ripe for fraud and incompetence. It’s cover for well connected donors and cronies to loot the treasury “legally.”
The Halliburton/KBR no bid give away is a glaring conflict of interest, and then they did shoddy, incompetent construction work, resulting in the deaths of our servicemen. Then there was overbilling, non completion etc…etc. Blackwater is another example, the list is too long for this post.
Ideally there should not be any privatization of public services, period.
August 31st, 2009 at 9:30 amIsn’t it FUNNY how, when crap like this is brought out of the shadows and into the light, that it stops…or at least in this case, this sceezy Rendon bunch gets canned.
August 31st, 2009 at 10:49 am@buffalo nickel
Exactly!
What you described up there were problems associated with all ’supposed’ government agencies making moves that would make ENRON blush. The FED would land smack dab in the middle of this conversation!
The question we should be asking ourselves is:
1. Why was the first thing Ben Bernanke thanked Obama for -when the O administration reappointed him as FED chief- was his “support for a strong INDEPENDENT federal reserve.”? This would make me assume that killing the Frank/Paul bill is at the very top of Bernanke’s list.
2. Why isn’t the American MSM covering this?
If you’ve been wondering why mainstream liberal special interest groups seem a little less outraged about the money that was STOLEN! From you. Then you know why.
August 31st, 2009 at 11:27 am@buffalo nickel
Exactly!
What you described up there were problems associated with all ’supposed’ government agencies making moves that would make ENRON blush. The FED would land smack dab in the middle of this conversation!
The question we should be asking ourselves is:
1. Why was the first thing Ben Bernanke thanked Obama for -when the O administration reappointed him as FED chief- was his “support for a strong INDEPENDENT federal reserve.”? This would make me assume that killing the Frank/Paul bill is at the very top of Bernanke’s list.
2. Why isn’t the American MSM covering this?
If you’ve been wondering why mainstream liberal special interest groups seem a little less outraged about the money that was STOLEN! From you. Then you know why.
There needs to be consequences for what happened so it won’t happen again
August 31st, 2009 at 11:29 am-
It may be all well and good that Smith, Admirall, Rear, pipes up DENYING “systemic BIASED UNFAIRness” by ‘journalists’ indoctrinated in “embed” — serving the American people since June, at least — however, intelligence community whistleblowers leaking inside poop, [n.b. - keeping always in mind the caveat that ANYthing from inside the intel.comm. can be either true or the reverse-engineering (a.k.a. counter to intelligence) -- spies leak, you decide], through Wayne Madsen Report .COM, {’WMR’) today details that:
Perhaps the phrasing in that should say finding the actual existence of spies disguised undercover as ‘journalists’ puts the lie to ‘publicized’ CIA policy.
Moreover, measuring where there are found two ‘pretense journalists’ there probably are two thousand, and recalling the run-of-the-mill syndicated ‘columnists’ (or ‘reporters’) who were corrupted by bribes (or blackmail) to publish phony-fawning material of recent-year Bush-GOP propaganda, PERHAPS it all goes to explain some understanding in eyewitness accounts of investigators presenting TV and newspaper media with evidence of war crimes etcetera and then TV and newspaper media suppressing all such mention and spiking stories. hmmmm ? …
As to the Admiral, Rear: Maybe he should call the bluff of intel.comm. whistleblowing which ‘puts the lie to’ Smith’s denying that ‘journalist’ embeds are pre-screened and pre-brainwashed.
August 31st, 2009 at 1:10 pm-
It may be all well and good that Smith, Admirall, Rear, pipes up DENYING “systemic BIASED UNFAIRness” by ‘journalists’ indoctrinated in “embed” — serving the American people since June, at least — however, intelligence community whistleblowers leaking inside poop, [n.b. - keeping always in mind the caveat that ANYthing from inside the intel.comm. can be either true or the reverse-engineering (a.k.a. counter to intelligence) -- spies leak, you decide], through Wayne Madsen Report .COM, {’WMR’) today details that:
Perhaps the phrasing in that should say finding the actual existence of spies disguised undercover as ‘journalists’ puts the lie to ‘publicized’ CIA policy.
Moreover, measuring where there are two ‘pretense journalists’ there are two thousand, and recalling the run-of-the-mill syndicated ‘columnists’ (or ‘reporters’) who were corrupted by bribes (or blackmail) to publish phony-fawning material of recent-year Bush-GOP propaganda, PERHAPS it all goes to explain some understanding in eyewitness accounts of investigators presenting TV and newspaper media with evidence of war crimes etcetera and then TV and newspaper media suppressing all such mention and spiking stories. hmmmm ? …
As to the Admiral, Rear: Maybe he should call the bluff of intel.comm. whistleblowing which ‘puts the lie to’ Smith’s denying that ‘journalist’ embeds are pre-screened and pre-brainwashed.
August 31st, 2009 at 1:14 pmIts amazing how fast the lack of morals can be asessed and the association stopped once it sees the light of day.
Perhaps journalists will start reporting again ?
August 31st, 2009 at 2:36 pmvery thanks for article!
September 2nd, 2009 at 10:38 am