The "information operations" officer at the center of an explosive Rolling Stone story about an allegedly-illicit propaganda operation will meet on Wednesday morning with an official inquiry to determine if his old boss, the general in charge of training Afghan troops, broke the law.

Only the officer, Lt. Col. Michael Holmes, concedes that Lt. Gen. Caldwell's effort was little more than spinning legislators – something any press flack could have done innocuously. Holmes' main message to the inquiry will actually be more meta: he's a whistleblower, subject to retaliation from Caldwell's staff after he expressed doubt that an info-ops guy like him should be spinning U.S. citizens.

Caldwell's command "was all about intimidation and reprisal, making people toe the line," Holmes tells Danger Room at a Washington D.C. coffee shop. At the Pentagon at 10 a.m., he'll pass that on to Lt. Gen. William Webster, whom Gen. David Petraeus appointed to investigate Caldwell after the Rolling Stone story broke.

And all that raises questions about precisely what Caldwell is supposed to have done wrong. (Full disclosure: Both Michael Hastings, the author of the Rolling Stone piece, and Caldwell are longtime friends of this blog.) After the story broke, the Internet was filled with breathless allegations about Caldwell's "psyop," making it seem like his staff used Jedi mind tricks to convince senators that the Afghan training mission is going swimmingly. But even Holmes says that's overblown.

From November 2009 to September 2010, Holmes worked in the strategic communications wing of the training mission, doing nothing "psyop-y," as he puts it: his main responsibilities were training the Afghan ministries of Defense and Interior to tell positive stories about their troops. That included sponsoring a Dari history book portraying the Afghan National Army as part of a grand national martial tradition; and even putting on a morale concert for new recruits.

He was also asked to contribute to briefings for visiting U.S. dignitaries, like senators and congressmen, who came to Kabul's Camp Eggers to observe the training mission and talk to Caldwell. Initially, that meant "just a Google search" on their bios, personalities, and voting records, he says. "That's not illegal... At that point, I wasn't asked, 'Hey, what is it we've got to tell them to get our message across?' I wasn't asked to put a spin on it."

And that's the extent of what Holmes says Caldwell did wrong: "putting a spin" on what to tell legislators about the training. In January 2010, Col. Gregory Breazile, the new head of Caldwell's strategic communications shop, asked Holmes, "OK, what is it we have to tell them? What are the quote-unquote, themes and messages that we need to tell these people to accomplish our goals, to achieve the effects we want to achieve," Holmes says. "That's where things start crossing the line."

Except that even in Holmes' telling, there was no inherent line crossed. Holmes feared that his training as an information operations officer disqualified him from spinning U.S. legislators, since information operations aren't supposed to target U.S. citizens. But both Holmes and Caldwell's team have told Danger Room that the training command didn't actually perform information operations – like attacking enemy computer networks, psychological warfare, or military deception. Indeed, while Holmes' September 2010 officer evaluation report refers to Holmes as an "Information Operations Supervisor," it noted, "there is not an operational requirement for Information Operations" in the training command.

The spin itself, Holmes says, was unproblematic. "There were about 22, 24 public affairs people there on the ground at the time that were more than capable of doing this, of doing press analysis, being able to tell, 'This is what's happening on the ground,'" Holmes says. If those "more qualified" flacks had spun the legislators, no problem.

But Caldwell's staff didn't find it credible that Holmes' information operations training disqualified him from a communications effort. A judge advocate general Holmes consulted, Capt. John Scott, agreed with Holmes that it was problematic for him to be involved in the spin. But in March, an attorney in Caldwell's command, Maj. Tami Mitchell, found that Holmes had been given "a lawful order."

The command, however, suddenly began investigating Holmes' own behavior that spring. And it chided Holmes for improper use of Facebook, walking around Kabul out of uniform and for an unprofessional relationship with a subordinate, Maj. Laural Levine. Holmes denies any impropriety with Levine – with whom he now runs run a strategic communications firm – and says that he needed to occasionally go out of uniform to advise the Afghans without drawing attention to himself. Indeed, Holmes' evaluation report, which he provided to Danger Room, praised his "capacity, competence and enthusiasm" and recommended him for promotion. But both he and Levine were ultimately reprimanded in what Holmes has called a "kangaroo" proceeding.

And that apparent reprisal is what Holmes wants to impress upon Webster at the Wednesday morning interview. "This is more about shining a light on a pattern of behavior that will do nothing to prevent people like me from saying something is wrong in the future," Holmes says. "How easy would it be to intimidate a young sergeant, a 20-year old kid? Would he know the illegality, and if he did, [will he report it if] his 25, 30 year old captain screaming in his face, 'If I say it's legal, it's legal'?"

Except there's another irony there. According to Holmes' account, the spin job was only an information operations effort because he was asked to participate – in effect, if he was on the other side of the door, it wasn't a psyop. It'll be up to Webster to decide if that's enough to wreck Caldwell's career.

Photo: Facebook/Michael Holmes

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