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As the new communication effort began, Obama gave a new title to Robert Malley, who is in charge of the Middle East for the National Security Council. As the president’s newly minted Senior Adviser for the Counter-ISIL Campaign in Iraq and Syria, Malley’s job is to consolidate efforts across departments and agencies in charge of the military, diplomatic, intelligence, financing and other aspects of the strategy.
Because Malley was not known as a prolific practitioner of social media, “it’s probably fair to say that Rob Malley was not itching to launch his own Twitter account,” the first senior administration official said. But Malley nonetheless inaugurated @robmalley44 on Dec. 11.
Although officials said Malley approves his own postings, most of what appears under the handle is compiled by the half dozen members of the White House Office of Digital Strategies, which retweets virtually every other tweet, chart, release, speech and statement on anti-Islamic State efforts from across the government.
The last week of the year sparked a a virtual flood of emails, releases, tweets and retweets from the White House, State and Defense departments, and the military and coalition allies hailing the Iraqi military’s success in driving Islamic State forces from the city of Ramadi.
In case anyone misses any of it, on Dec. 8 the NSC press office began emailing to a long list of reporters a daily roundup it said would “aggregate key developments across the various lines of effort in our unyielding campaign to degrade and destroy ISIL.”
“You’re going to see more of all of it in the new year,” the first senior official said. “You’ll see the president continue to be the chief messenger when it comes to this. He’s uniquely suited to tie together the different streams. You’ll also see Carter, Kerry, the military generals, Lew, Szubin — the whole cast of characters really, to speak to this in a very concerted way in order to ensure” that the message is getting out.
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