Lobbying & Law – Veterans of Political Wars

Lobbying & Law – Veterans of Political Wars

By Julie Kosterlitz

Old soldiers never die — they just form political action committees, "527s," and 501(c)4s. Especially, it seems, during this election season, which is shaping up in large part as a referendum on the Bush administration’s handling of the Iraq war. The proliferation of groups with such high-minded — and opaque — names as "Veterans for the Truth," "Veterans for Freedom," and "Veterans’ Alliance for Security and Democracy" carries the suggestion that military service offers special insight into the debate over the war and the conduct of public policy.

Perhaps, but the new veterans’ groups hold differing views on the war, and sometimes are on opposite sides in high-profile races. Most of the groups include party activists as leaders or consultants, and many have staked out positions on the war that line up largely with one of the two major political parties. Moreover, most of the groups accept money from nonveterans and are set up under provisions of the tax or campaign finance laws that place few restrictions on the size of donations and have minimal public disclosure requirements.

Some of the groups seek to offset any extra authority that might be accorded to anti-war Democrats who are veterans, such as Virginian Jim Webb, a decorated marine and former Navy secretary who is seeking a Senate seat, and Rep. John Murtha of Pennsylvania, who is also a decorated marine. Veterans for George is part of the official campaign of Sen. George Allen, R-Va., who has steadfastly supported the U.S. engagement in Iraq. Paul Gallanti, a former prisoner of war and Vietnam-era Navy commander who runs the group, says he has been rounding up "a slew of well-known vets," is making public appearances, and is planning advertisements in support of Allen, who has no military experience.

Veterans for the Truth, run by retired Navy Capt. Larry Bailey of Chocowinity, N.C., is opposing Murtha’s re-election with a reprise of the techniques that Bailey’s Vietnam Veterans for Truth PAC used to oppose Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry in 2004. Bailey says he began the effort because he was outraged by hearing Murtha "accuse soldiers of killing innocent civilians in cold blood" in Haditha, Iraq, before all the facts were known. He is sponsoring "Operation Street Corner" — anti-Murtha booths at community events — and is helping to pull together (along with two local veterans) an October 1 anti-Murtha rally in the congressman’s district. Bailey said that Iowa Presidential Watch, a political action committee run by Republican activists in that state, is raising funds for the group. In a mid-September posting on his Web site, Bailey said that his organization had garnered $24,000. IRS records also show that the group recently set up a tax-exempt 527 (named for a section of the tax code) with a Florida address.

Although Murtha’s re-election is widely considered a foregone conclusion, the campaign has launched "Veterans for Murtha," headed by former Sen. Max Cleland, D-Ga., a Vietnam veteran and triple amputee. That group is organizing a pro-Murtha rally — a day before the anti-Murtha rally — featuring Cleland and such high-profile Democratic veterans as former Sen. Bob Kerrey of Nebraska and retired Gen. Wesley Clark.

New political groups headed by veterans of the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan have staked out slightly more nuanced but still largely conflicting stances on the two wars. Veterans for Freedom, for example, a 527 group run by Iraq war veteran Wade Zirkle out of a basement sublet in Washington, D.C., favors continuing the Iraq war effort. The group has been running television ads featuring veterans and their families praising Sen. Joe Lieberman, the longtime Connecticut Democrat now running as an independent, after his support for the Iraq war caused him to lose the party primary to anti-war candidate Ned Lamont. "Whatever your feelings about Iraq," says one veteran in an ad; "no matter how complicated it got," says another; Lieberman "was there for us," says a third. "He stood with troops and their mission," one of them concludes.

VoteVets.org, which holds a more critical view of the war, is headed by Iraq veteran Jon Soltz. Working out of an office in Manhattan, VoteVets has run television ads against Sens. Allen and Rick Santorum, R-Pa., accusing them of not voting for bulletproof vests for soldiers in Iraq. In the ad, Army reservist Peter Granato fires an AK-47 at two mannequins — one with a "vest left over from the Vietnam War" — which fails to stop a bullet, and the other wearing bullet-stopping "modern body armor." Granato, brandishing the modern vest, then says that Allen (or, Santorum) "voted against giving our troops this. Now it’s time for us to vote against him." The group has also run newspaper and radio ads in Connecticut chastising Lieberman for failing to ask "a lot of tough questions about the war." (The nonpartisan FactCheck.org recently took issue with key elements of the TV ad, and said that "both sides have misled the public" on the body armor issue. Soltz and VoteVets maintain that the ad is accurate.)

Perhaps not surprisingly, both groups have partisan ties. Zirkle has engaged prominent Republican consultants, including former Bush administration spokesmen Taylor Gross and Dan Senor. Gross’s PR firm helped Zirkle and fellow Iraq veteran David Bellavia approach mainstream newspapers to offer dispatches from the two as war correspondents embedded with the military. The two eventually got press credentials through the neoconservative Weekly Standard, whose editor, William Kristol, has become an informal adviser to the group and helped put it in touch with Senor, who is now on retainer to help with fundraising.

Soltz organized veterans in Pennsylvania for John Kerry’s 2004 presidential campaign, and his VoteVets boasts an advisory board dominated by such Democratic veterans as Kerrey and Clark. Soltz’s group isn’t alone on the left. Veterans’ Alliance for Security and Democracy, also known as VetPac, is raising money for a number of veterans running for Congress as Democrats. It is run by Richard L. (Dick) Klass, a retired Air Force colonel and aerospace industry consultant from Virginia who is a member of the Democratic National Committee’s liaison group to veterans. The host committee for the group’s recent "Salute to John Murtha" fundraiser in Washington included House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi, former Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle, and United Mine Workers of America President Cecil Roberts, as well as major Democratic donor Leo Hindery Jr. Also on the left is a group that is scrutinizing the new veterans’ groups. The Patriot Project, formed by friends and supporters of Kerry in reaction to the high-profile advertising campaign in 2004 of the anti-Kerry Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, says that its mission is to "defend any man or woman, regardless of party or affiliation, who is attacked or defamed and whose patriotism is questioned simply because they exercise their rights as Americans."

The Swift Boat group (later renamed the Swift Boat Veterans and POWs for Truth) charged Kerry with lying to receive combat medals and with harming American prisoners of war by his subsequent anti-war activities. More than half of its $17 million in contributions came from three prominent Texas Republicans with close ties to George W. Bush and his political advisers — a fact revealed only in campaign finance reports well after the election.

Patriot Project Executive Director James Boyce, a Boston-based former Kerry campaign worker, sees the Swift Boat episode as part of a pattern in recent campaigns of foes impugning the integrity or patriotism of veterans — a tactic he dubs "Swift-Boating." The campaign against John Murtha by Veterans for the Truth "is the same strategy used against Cleland and Kerry," Boyce said. (Cleland was defeated in 2002 after his Republican opponent ran ads painting him as soft on national security.) "We are going to educate, expose, and make transparent the front groups." Boyce’s group is working in Pennsylvania to counter the anti-Murtha booths and to boost attendance at a pro-Murtha rally.

The project is also publicizing ties between current groups and the (now inactive) Swift Boat veterans’ group. The group has noted that Bailey has invited former Swift Boat activist John O’Neill — who addressed Bailey’s 2004 anti-Kerry rally — to speak to the anti-Murtha rally as well. In the Allen campaign, it says, Gallanti, top strategist Chris LaCivita, a former marine, and advertising consultant Scott Howell were all part of the Swift Boat effort.

But despite its focus on transparency, the Patriot Project isn’t required to, and doesn’t, disclose much information about its own finances. Boyce declines to reveal the group’s budget or who underwrites it. And although it bills itself as nonpartisan, the project focuses on conservative groups on its Web site.

Most of the new veterans’ groups have similar difficulties proving their claim to be above partisan or ideological politics. The conservative Veterans for Freedom cites its support for Lieberman and House incumbent Jim Marshall of Georgia, a decorated former Army Ranger in Vietnam — two Democrats whose strong support for the Iraq war puts them at odds with their party. The liberal Vote Vets cites its ad critical of Lieberman and its contributions to Republican Sam Schultz, a National Guard member who served in Iraq and who lost a primary bid to Rep. Mike Sodrel in Indiana. VetPac’s Klass said in an interview that his group is nonpartisan, but it hasn’t "found a Republican who can answer our questionnaire properly."

The California-based Iraq Veterans for Progress, a PAC that has endorsed four Democratic candidates, skips the nonpartisan claim and says it supports candidates who will bring the troops home. Run by Air Force veteran Tim Goodrich, who served in Afghanistan and pre-invasion Iraq, the group has an advisory board that includes anti-Vietnam War icons Daniel Ellsberg and Howard Zinn, as well as Rep. Lynn Woolsey, D-Calif., an "honorary" member. Goodrich also sits on the board of the Philadelphia-based Iraq Veterans Against the War, a group meant to educate people about "the realities of war" and to support war resisters.

One group that is trying to live up to the nonpartisan claim is the two-year-old Iraq and Afghan Veterans of America. Paul Rieckhoff, the Iraq veteran who runs it, decided earlier this year to pull his group back from a foray into electoral politics by severing ties with Soltz’s VoteVets. He says he wants to find common ground for this generation of veterans. This means focusing on education and advocacy: more public awareness of the war and its strain on the military and veterans, particularly the growing numbers with brain injuries and post-traumatic stress disorder. Rieckhoff sees his group as a much smaller but more contemporary and Web-savvy version of old-line veterans groups such as the Veterans of Foreign Wars and the Vietnam Veterans of America.

A political independent, Rieckhoff is friendly with Zirkle, whom he met through mutual veteran friends. He said he also senses that many veterans are tired of the partisan sniping over the war. "What I hear most often is, ‘The Republicans got us into this mess, and the Democrats don’t have a plan to get us out of it.’ "

Original Article

POLITICAL ACTION COMMITTEE: Iraq Veterans for Progress – Iraq Veterans for Progress is the first and only organization established by Iraq veterans that uses the political process to call for the troops to come home.