Bush Aide Karen Hughes' Plans For Iraq: Media Projects, Book-Publishing, Scholarships...

Think Progress October 28, 2006 05:40 PM

Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs Karen Hughes heads off to the Middle East this weekend for a round of public diplomacy. Think Progress has obtained this internal memorandum sent from Hughes to National Security Council Principals earlier this month entitled "Thinking 'bigger.'"

A key section of this memo offers the Bush administration's strategy for "Public Diplomacy to Counter Insurgency in Iraq." Far from "thinking bigger," the recommendations for defeating the insurgency are small-minded, unambitious, and disconnected from reality. Here are Hughes' three ideas:

- Substantially expand...[the] "Micro scholarship" program...targeted at youth in key disadvantaged areas in Iraq, such as Sadr City or Anbar Governorate."

- Create a fund to support media projects by Iraqis, such as documentaries, short films, animation, audio-visual productions and other material that would show Iraq's reality to pan-Arab and pan-Islamic audiences.

- Revive book publishing in Iraq to fill the intellectual vacuum...and support...Iraq's hard-pressed intellectuals.

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