Quote Originally Posted by Schmedlap View Post
In OIF V, we had an incident where a PAO issued a press release, giving a very accurate battle damage assessment of a mortar attack. He more or less stated, "on d day at h hour, x mortars were fired from y location and hit such and such location, resulting in xyz damage." Coincidentally, two days later, we saw a video of the attack on an insurgent website and saw a video of the insurgents reciting the battle damage put out by the PAO. That part of that particular FOB got hammered with mortars at that same location numerous times for several weeks. Many wounded, lots of damage, thank you very much, may I have another?

A perfect example of why the artificial firewall that the US places between its uniformed PA staff and the people that actually conduct operations in the global information environment can only result in information fratricide. The sooner PA moves away from being a command support function and becomes and ops function the better. In simple terms the US military's PA capability performs the same function during ops as it does during peacetime ... that is look at us we're good neighbours. You can't criticise the PA guys when your own doctrine and leadership keeps them off to one side, completely silo'd and tells them all day every day that they're losing the information war ... do something to get on the front foot. in 04 when MNF-I STRATCOM was formed and the PA, IO and PD guys all worked in the same room it was completely undercut by cap badge rivalry and politics ... the information lessons learned in Al FAJR continue to to be ignored.