Editing Rendon Group (section)

===Iraq===

A number of publications have reported on The Rendon Group's work with the CIA in the 1990s. After allegation of inflated staff salaries, the CIA conducted an audit in 1995. ABC reported that the company spent $23 million in the first year of work. The CIA has not commented as to whether the claims were accurate.<ref name="newrepublic2002">{{cite magazine|author=Franklin Foer|authorlink=Franklin Foer|title=Flacks Americana|url=https://newrepublic.com/article/politics/flacks-americana|magazine=The New Republic|date=20 May 2002|publisher=New Republic|accessdate=4 October 2014|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20140813104157/http://www.newrepublic.com/article/politics/flacks-americana|archivedate=2014-08-13}}</ref><ref name = hersh/>

According to a freelance translator who helped translate some of the radio broadcasts into Arabic, the program was poorly run. "No one in-house spoke a word of Arabic," he says. The scripts, he adds, were often ill-conceived. "Who in Iraq is going to think it's funny to poke fun at Saddam's mustache," the student notes, "when the vast majority of Iraqi men themselves have mustaches?"

Writing in the ''[[The New Yorker|New Yorker]]'', [[Seymour Hersh]] said the Rendon Group was "paid close to a hundred million dollars by the CIA" for its work with the INC."<ref name = hersh>{{cite magazine|url=https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2002/03/11/the-debate-within |title=The Debate Within |magazine=The New Yorker |date=2002-03-11 |accessdate=2014-10-04}}</ref> Journalist [[James Bamford]] reported in the [[Rolling Stone]] that Rendon came up with the name for the INC and helped install [[Ahmed Chalabi]] as its head.<ref>[[James Bamford|Bamford, James]]. "[https://web.archive.org/web/20060612234417/http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/8798997/the_man_who_sold_the_war/ The Man Who Sold The War: Meet John Rendon, Bush's General in the Propaganda War.]" ''[[Rolling Stone (magazine)|Rolling Stone]]'' November 17, 2005. [Winner of  2006 [[National Magazine Award]] in the category of "Reporting."]</ref> Francis Brooke, adviser to Ahmed Chalabi and former employee of The Rendon Group said, “Those arguments are false. Mr. Rendon was a consultant. The Iraqi National Congress was founded independently by Dr. Chalabi, and Mr. Rendon provided consulting services during that period.”<ref>"10 Marines Killed in Iraq", [[CNN]], ''[[The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer|The Situation Room]]'', 2 December 2005</ref>

The Rendon Group replied on its website to Mr. Bamford's article, saying, “For the record, the Rendon Group (TRG) had no role whatsoever in making the case for the Iraq war, here at home or internationally. Mr. Bamford's contention to the contrary is flatly untrue. TRG reviews open source media reports for the Department of Defense and analyzes and charts positive and negative trends very much the same way public opinion researchers analyze polling data. Unable to find facts that support his thesis, Mr. Bamford relies on false information and mischaracterization to create his story.” The post goes on to address numerous factual errors in Bamford's article.<ref name=rendon1>{{cite web|author1=The Rendon Group|title=Letter to Editor Of RollingStone Magazine|url=http://www.rendon.com/letter.php|website=rendon.com|accessdate=4 October 2014|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20080820185625/http://www.rendon.com/letter.php|archivedate=2008-08-20|date=2005-11-18}}</ref>