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March 9, 2010

Claim: Pentagon Pedaled Misinformation about Attack on Marjah
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While Defense Secretary Robert Gates praised the recent offensive in
Marjah, the military historian and journalist Gareth Porter reports the
Pentagon may have purposely over-hyped the importance of Marjah to make
it out to be a historic turning point in the war. While Marjah was
described in the press as a city of 80,000, Porter reports it is not
even a real town, just a few clusters of farmers’ homes and a large
agricultural area covering much of the southern Helmand River Valley.
Porter describes the picture of Marjah presented by military officials
as one of the clearest and most dramatic pieces of misinformation of the
entire war.



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