Wag the Dog

2 Pages·2021·0.07 MB·English

Movie men add special effects
to media war

FROM DAVID CHARTER CAMP AS SAYLIYAH, DOHA

THE Pentagon has enlisted Hollywood to help to
present its daily briefings to the world.

Fresh from the latest Michael Douglas film, one of
Tinseltown’s top art directors has been hired to
create a $200,000 (£125,000) set for General
Tommy Franks and other American commanders to
give daily updates.

George Allison, 43, who has designed White House
backdrops for President Bush and worked with the
illusionist David Blaine, has been flown into the US
Central Command base in Qatar as part of a reputed
$1 million (£625,000) conversion of a storage hangar
into a high-tech hub for the international media.

Mr Allison’s credits include the set for ABC’s Good
Morning America as well as Hollywood productions
for MGM and Disney such as the Kirk and Michael
Douglas film It Runs in the Family, due to be
released next month.

His work in Qatar reflects the Pentagon’s realisation
that it needs to look good on prime-time television,
especially given public disquiet about the war, which
is being led by some Hollywood personalities such
as Martin Sheen, Sean Penn and Susan Sarandon.

Gone are the easel and chart, solitary television and
VCR machine with which General Norman
Schwarzkopf showed fuzzy images of smart-bomb
raids during the 1991 Gulf War. On a set that will
become instantly recognisable, generals will present
updates from two podiums at the front of a stage
adorned with five 50in plasma screens and two 70in
television projection screens ready to show maps,
graphics and videos of action.

Behind them will be a soft-focus elongated map of
the world, as if to suggest that the world is united
behind them. The set was built in Chicago and
reputedly shipped over by Federal Express at a cost
of $47,000 (£29,000).

Besides looking good on television, the presentation
conveys another message — that American
technology is second to none and far outclasses
anything possessed by the Iraqis, who will be
watching the briefings on the Arab broadcaster al-
Jazeera.

President Saddam Hussein’s generals are likely to
present their updates in Baghdad at a table in front of

their national flag. The technology gulf will be part of
a psychological campaign abetted by the media,
which is here in droves. US military planners have
ensured that their footage will be instantly available
in the eight most common video formats.

Mr Allison said: “This is about bringing the level of
technology up from the flipchart to the modern age. It
is trying to send a clear message about the
technology and our use of it.”

Not all is running smoothly. Organisers have
discovered that they are several hundred telephone
lines short. Nor is the spirit of openness towards the
media unrestricted: photographs of the set are
banned.