The Lincoln Group (LG), that nebulous entity that the U.S. military hired to plant stories in the Iraqi media, apparently doesn't even have the necessary talent on their staff. According to a story in Editor & Publisher, LG subcontracted the work to BKSH & Associates, "one part of the giant communications company, Burson-Marsteller's."

No surprise there. The game of subcontracting dilutes the liability and hides where the money went. In fact, the LG website actually proclaims its expertise in this area—

Lincoln Group formed to pursue private sector opportunities in Iraq. Lincoln Group brings a unique combination of expertise in collecting and exploiting information; structuring transactions; and mitigating risks through due diligence, legal strategies and security. Lincoln Group has developed subsidiaries and private equity investments in Iraq spanning commercial real estate, manufacturing, metals, transportation, and communications.

But what caught my eye was this, as reported by a public relations trade publication—

BKSH has experience on the Iraqi front earned from work for Ahmed Chalabi and his Iraqi National Congress.

Chalabi and the Iraqi National Congress (INC) were funded by hundreds of millions of dollars from the U.S.

By using the phrase "the Iraqi front" the reader is given the impression that BKSH was doing work for Chalabi and his anti-Saddam efforts in Iraq, but that is not necessarily the proper interpretation. Most of the work of Chalabi and the INC in their latter years was to provide the Bush administration with fake intelligence to justify the war.

Was the work of BKSH, in serving Chalabi and the INC, in fact directed toward the American media, and hence the American public, to bolster the cause of Chalabi and the INC? If the U.S. government was funding such an operation, it would have been illegal.

Any chance of an investigation?