MSNBC: Pentagon may have been ordered to cover up investigation

Last year, The New York Times revealed the existence of a secret Pentagon program which used retired officers who served as military analysts on television news programs to disseminate Bush administration talking points.

The Defense Department inspector general’s office issued a report this January attempting to refute the Times expose, but it was widely derided as a “whitewash.” In an unusual move, the Pentagon has now withdrawn that report, acknowledging its inaccuracies and flawed methodology.

New York Times columnist Frank Rich believes that this one apparent coverup may be only the tip of the iceberg and that it may have been carried out in response to “orders from above.”

Rich, who has written extensively on the Bush administration’s use of propaganda to sell its war in Iraq, told MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow on Wednesday that “there were a lot of suspect reports” from the inspector general’s office.

“In 2005, [Senator] John Warner … was incredulous at a Pentagon inspector general’s report that cleared Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz of knowing anything about the huge procurement scandal involving Boeing,” Rich noted. “That inspector general [Joseph Schmitz] then left and went to work for Blackwater.

“We have to know what other suspect IG reports there were over the past five or six years during the war in Iraq,” Rich insisted. “There may be a much bigger story here.”