»US army has to pay for positive news reports in Iraq«

The U.S. military is paying Iraqi newspapers to run articles casting a favorable light on U.S. operations in the country, the Los Angeles Times reports.

The articles are written by U.S. military "information operations" troops, translated into Arabic and placed in Baghdad newspapers as unbiased news accounts written and reported by independent journalists.

The Pentagon has a contract with a small Washington-based firm called Lincoln Group, which helps translate and place the stories. The Lincoln Group's Iraqi staff, or its subcontractors, sometimes pose as freelance reporters or advertising executives when they deliver the stories, sources told the Times.

The information operations campaign doesn't sit well with some military officers in Iraq and at the Pentagon.

"Here we are trying to create the principles of democracy in Iraq. Every speech we give in that country is about democracy. And we're breaking all the first principles of democracy when we're doing it," said a Pentagon official.