Recently an article in The Kansas City Star [read story] caught my eye. It was about a speech to the National Council of Editorial Writers by Lt. Gen. William B. Caldwell IV, who spent more than a year in Iraq as the chief spokesman for the Multi-National Force there. He is now commanding general of the U.S. Army Combined Arms Center at Fort Leavenworth, Kan. He told the editorial writers that he had strongly urged his colleagues in the military to be open with the press, and not to fear talking with reporters. Those were frankly encouraging words for the ombudsman, whose aim is to improve communication between people in uniform and the media. I put several questions to Lt. Gen. Caldwell.

I take it that when you urged your colleagues to be more open with the press, you were met with some resistance. What were the chief objections to talking with the press?

I think there exists an institutional resistance to engaging with the press. In part, it is not in our culture to talk about ourselves or draw attention to our sacrifices or contributions. As soldiers, we put the Army and the mission first. Secondly, I think our OPSEC training conditions us to be guarded with sharing any information that could possibly be used against us. But I also think we handicap ourselves with excessive bureaucracy and an over-classification of information. I also believe that many of us wrongly assume that the press has an anti-military bias which I do not believe to be true.

How would you rate your success in getting officers to speak more openly with the press? Did more follow your advice than not, or vice versa?

I believe it is somewhat difficult to measure the immediate effects, but over the long haul I think our Army and its leaders will truly embrace this culture of openness and opportunity. As the commander for the Combined Arms Center and Fort Leavenworth, I have instilled changes in our schools and curriculum to afford every student the opportunity to do a live interview of some sort with the media. This way, we can affect our culture one interview at a time.

Were there instances when NOT talking with the press resulted in “less reliable, even enemy, sources filling the information void?” (As the Star paraphrased your statement at the editorial writers’ meeting.)

It is well known at this point that the enemy is extremely sophisticated when it comes to propaganda and media manipulation. We have the opportunity to engage with the media and provide accurate and relevant information or allow others to fill that medium. Within al-Qaida we see propaganda ministers in the highest levels of leadership in these cells. We see camera men assigned to the very teams the enemy sends to attack coalition forces and, in some cases, those very images then get distributed across the Internet and airwaves within hours. Meanwhile, it can sometimes take days for coalition forces to acknowledge or counter erroneous reporting of an event.

Were there instances when in your view talking with the press DID result in harm to the U.S. forces’ cause — either politically or militarily.

Obviously, as a commander, your first responsibility is to protect the force. There will be many occasions when a commander will know more than he can share with the public, but it is critical that you explain why. It might be to protect TTPs [tactics, techniques and procedures] or an ongoing mission. There are also, unfortunately, circumstances where it is your obligation to protect and respect the privacy or the families of our soldiers. Overwhelmingly, once we explained the reasons behind limiting information, the press was respectful and would honor our requests. That being said, there are no instances that I am aware of that an engagement with the press resulted in harm to our forces; in fact, I normally found the exact opposite effect.

Do you know of any instances when an officer or enlisted person got into trouble with superiors for talking with reporters?

All of us in uniform have a responsibility to those we serve. From my experience, none that I recall when they commented on subjects which they had knowledge.

From your experience over 13 months, would you say the media is doing a good, so-so, or bad job describing what you consider to be the real situation in Iraq. What more can, should reporters be doing?

I developed a real respect for working journalists, both the international press and the Iraqi press. Those brave men and women take significant risks in their search for the truth and uncovering injustice. In fact, I discovered that soldiers and reporters share a number of common values and great responsibilities to the publics we serve.

I assume you saw copies of Stars and Stripes in Baghdad with some regularity and probably met some of the paper’s reporters (though they are usually embedded with troops in the field). How good a job do you think this paper was doing covering the war? Any suggestions for the editors?

Reporters from the Stars and Stripes regularly participated in our news conferences and in our embed programs. Consummate professionals — I always found their coverage to be informed and thorough. Their coverage of the war was on par with the others, but Stars and Stripes frequently asked the questions that the soldiers wanted answered. I was always grateful for those questions.