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So, just who is Christian Bailey?
A 30-year-old Oxford graduate with no public relations experience
has been handed a $100m contract by the Pentagon - to plant false
stories in Iraqi papers.
By Andrew Buncombe
12/17/05 "The
Independent" -- -- The office building situated at
1420 K Street NW has nothing obvious to commend it other than its
prime location. Just a couple of streets from the north-west gates
of the White House, it sits in the heart of lobbying land - the K
Street corridor that represents one of the most crucial centres of
power, influence and money in the United States.
This grey building, neighboured to one side by an off-licence and to
the other by a travel agent, is home to the Lincoln Group, a
previously little-known "business intelligence" company headed by a
heretofore little known young Briton, Christian Bailey, an Oxford
graduate and consummate net worker. He is at the centre of a
mounting storm of controversy surrounding the Bush administration's
covert propaganda war in Iraq.
It was recently revealed that Bailey's company was the recipient of
a $100m (£56m) contract from Donald Rumsfeld's Department of Defence
for buying space in Iraqi newspapers to place deliberately one-sided
stories written by US "psy-ops" troops, at a time when the chaos of
Iraq makes genuine journalism all but impossible and when
journalists risk their lives on a daily basis to report the truth.
As part of the project - in which the US military hid its
involvement - Lincoln Group staff paid Iraqi journalists to write
similarly misleading stories about US forces and the Iraqi
government that ignored anything negative about the occupation. One
headline read: "Iraqis Insist on Living Despite Terrorism."
The revelations have created a furore. President Bush is said to be
"very troubled" by the news, while on Capitol Hill members of both
the Senate and House armed services committees demanded inquiries.
The Pentagon said it would launch an immediate investigation.
Much is unclear about the Lincoln Group, its youthful executive
vice-president and his string of previous companies that have left
only the faintest paper trail. Indeed, Christian Bailey may not be
his real name: a number of student associates said at some point
during his four years that he changed his name from Yusefovich - an
unlikely surname for someone called Christian.
The Independent has been unable to confirm this. Yet the details
known about Bailey and the contract his company won provide a
remarkable insight into the way influence and power operate in
Washington. Just two years after arriving here, Bailey, 30, who has
a penchant for socialising, has apparently developed contacts both
within the Republican establishment and the world of private
intelligence.
Senator John Warner, the Republican chairman of the Senate Armed
Services Committee, said of the false news operation: "I remain
gravely concerned about the situation." Since the controversy broke
Bailey has kept a low-profile and has offered just the fewest public
words about his organisation and what it does. (He failed to respond
to requests for an interview.) It also appears a number of internet
references linking him to the Republicans can no longer be found.
Yet it is clear the Lincoln Group and its contract with the Joint
Psychological Operations Support Element, part of the Pentagon's
Special Operations Command, is inextricably linked with Bailey. He
apparently named the company and its various offshoots after Lincoln
College, Oxford, from which he graduated in 1997 with an MA in
economics and management.
Many observers have been surprised Bailey, from Surrey, has been
awarded such a sizable contract, give that he appears to have no
experience in public relations. Indeed, since he moved to the US in
the late 1990s, he has spent much of his time in private finance,
working in hedge funds in San Francisco and New York.
It appears he has been especially interested in new technology
markets. A brief biography presented by the organisers of a
conference held earlier this year in Dubai at which Bailey was
listed as a speaker, said he had worked in Palo Alto, California,
"where he advised portfolio companies and identified, evaluated and
developed emerging technology investments".
The Briton has always enjoyed a reputation for business. Several
Oxford associates said it was rumoured that the popular student kept
two computers in his room to monitor the stock markets. Bailey has
said he founded and sold two companies while an undergraduate. "He
was quite enterprising, I believe," said Graham De'ath, of
Winchester, who was in the same year.
Kate Smurthwaite, who is now a stand-up comic but shared a flat with
Bailey in his third year, told The Independent that the young
entrepreneur hired a personal assistant to work for him in his
student digs as he ran an operation selling self-help advice on
cassettes.
He also had a reputation as a hard-working networker. While in New
York he became treasurer of the Oxonian Society, a club for
graduates of Oxford and other universities, which invites
high-profile figures to speak. He was involved in at least one
charity fundraising effort with other hedge-funders. Perhaps of more
significance, Bailey became the co-chairman of the New York chapter
of Lead21, a networking group for young Republicans. At least a
dozen of its members have gone on to work for either the Bush
administration, Congress or the Governor of California, Arnold
Schwarzenegger.
During a Lead21 trip to the Republican National Convention in New
York last autumn, Bailey said of his colleagues to one reporter:
"These are going to be the big supporters, the big donors, to the
Republican Party in five years."
According to other members, Bailey was very popular. Auren Hoffman,
chair of Lead21 and chairman of the Stonebrick Group, a San
Francisco-based consulting firm, said Bailey was a good friend.
"Christian is a terrific guy personally. Everyone I know that has
ever met him instantly likes him. He is very likeable and charming.
Very intelligent. Very interesting."
When he moved to Washington, his reputation as a networker
continued. He often hosted parties at home and mixed with a set of
young, up-and-coming journalists and congressional staffers. He
enjoyed a reputation as a good cook, a welcoming host and for making
cappuccinos with a machine in his kitchen. He also enjoyed flying:
Federal Aviation Administration records show that he is qualified to
fly aeroplanes and helicopters.
How and when did Bailey make the switch from hedge funds to private
intelligence and PR? One clue is provided by the Alternative
Investment News newsletter of 1 March 2003, just weeks before the
invasion of Iraq. It reported Bailey's hedge fund, Lincoln Asset
Management Group, had launched a buyout fund to start buying
companies in the defence and security industries. Bailey said he had
obtained commitments of $100m from six institutional investors, whom
he declined to name.
Apparently with an eye to the preparations for war being made in the
deserts of northern Kuwait, he added: "[The] timing is extremely
good to look at defence companies." Shortly afterwards, a subsidiary
called Lincoln Alliance Corp was established, offering what it
called "tailored intelligence services [for] government clients
faced with critical intelligence challenges".
By last autumn Bailey had formed another Lincoln subsidiary, called
Iraqex, which seems to have formed a partnership with another
American PR firm called Rendon, famous in Washington for having
promoted Ahmed Chalabi and his Iraqi National Congress.
At some point Bailey also went into business with Paige Craig, 31, a
former US Marine who served in Iraq and elsewhere. [Bailey and Craig
are flatmates in a fashionable part of Washington, close to U
Street. The flat is just yards away from Café Saint- Ex, popular
with young professionals.]
In September, Iraqex won a $6m Pentagon contract to design and
execute "an aggressive advertising and PR campaign that will
accurately inform the Iraqi people of the Coalition's goals and gain
their support". It appears one project was an attempt to persuade
the Iraqi and US public that Iraqi troops played a vital role in
last year's effort to clear Fallujah.
A strategy document obtained by ABC News revealed the Lincoln Group
was seeking to promote the "strength, integrity and reliability of
Iraqi forces during the fight for Falujah". In reality, most
assessments suggest the small number of Iraqi troops present were
minimally involved.
But the real breakthrough came this summer when Bailey's company,
having again changed its name to the Lincoln Group, secured a $100m
contract for information and psychological operations. Part of the
contract was for placing "faux" news stories in some of the 200
Iraqi-owned newspapers that now exist.
Pentagon officials have said that, while not factually incorrect,
these stories only presented one side of the story and would not
include anything negative about the occupation. It was reported this
week that the $10Om was part of a larger $300m "stealth PR effort"
in a number of countries around the world.
One PR consultant with experience of the private-intelligence
sector, said: "Doctrinally, this is all part of what the military
calls information superiority. It is part of the plan for what they
call, rather upsettingly, full-spectrum dominance. The truth is that
it is just propaganda. And there has always been propaganda in a
war. And this is a war, so ... thus runs the thinking."
According to reports from former Lincoln employees, their main task
was to take news dispatches, called storyboards, which had been
written by specially trained psy-ops troops, have them translated
into Arabic and then distribute them to the newspapers. They would
also deal directly with members of the Iraqi media through something
called the Baghdad Press Club, a group of journalists who were paid
to write and publish positive stories. Typically, Lincoln paid
newspapers between $40 and $2,000 to run the articles as either news
or adverts.
To help it carry out its work, Bailey and Craig - the latter is
apparently responsible for most of the Iraq-based end of the
business - have reached out to some of the foremost specialists in
security and intelligence. Among "advisers" listed on their website
is Andrew Garfield, a former British military-intelligence officer
and specialist in psychological warfare who has advised the Ministry
of Defence. In an e-mail to The Guardian Garfield confirmed his
collaboration with Lincoln but gave no details.
Another adviser is Colin Rees Mason, who two years ago received an
OBE for his service as a lieutenant-colonel in the Territorial Army,
and who for almost 20 years has been a consultant to the Centre for
Operational Research and Defence Analysis, a subsidiary of BAE
Systems.
The Lincoln Group also has Republican links. Among lobbyists
registered to represent it are Charles Black, an adviser to
Presidents Ronald Reagan and George Bush Sr and Marlin "Buzz" Hefti,
who served as a director at the Pentagon.
Lincoln Group also lists as a partner the Virginia-based private
intelligence group WCV3 Security. Last year that company's executive
vice-president took unpaid leave to produce Stolen Honour: Wounds
That Never Heal, a film that, at a critical time in the presidential
election campaign, condemned the Democrat John Kerry and questioned
his version of events in Vietnam.
Despite the concern on Capitol Hill about the placing of false
stories in foreign media outlets - a practice that dates back to the
Cold War - it is unknown what will be the outcome of the Pentagon's
investigation. It is also unclear how the controversy has affected
the ability of the Lincoln Group or Bailey to fulfil its contract.
In a statement the company said: "Lincoln Group has consistently
worked with the Iraqi media to promote truthful reporting across
Iraq. We counter the lies, intimidation, and pure evil of terror
with factual stories that highlight the heroism and sacrifice of the
Iraqi people and their struggle for freedom and security."
Additional reports: Simon Usborne
© 2005 Independent News and Media Limited
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