US military calls in Hollywood set designer

By ANDREW BUNCOMBE

KUWAIT CITY - For a military machine fighting a 21st Century war nothing matters more than putting across its message - and the way that message is put across. Of course, a pale blue backdrop doesn't hurt either.

That, at least, seems to be the view of the Pentagon which has spent US$200,000 ($362,000) for a Hollywood set designer to give its military briefing room in the Gulf a glitzy makeover.

During the first Gulf war allied commander Norman Schwarzkopf set up shop in the ballroom of a Saudi hotel with nothing more than an easel and a single television screen to impress impressionable reporters with action videos of smart bombs hitting their targets like something from an arcade game. It was only much later that it emerged that the vast majority of the bombs dropped were of the old-fashioned "drop 'em and hope" variety.

But this time around General Tommy Franks and his commanders will not have to rely on anything so primitive. As the Pentagon promises that any new Gulf war will be much more surgical in terms of the bombs dropped, it is also trying to ensure that its new presentation is slicker.

The high-tech set at the Central Command's regional base in Qatar is half as wide as a basketball court, features a soft focus blue and white map of the world as its backdrop while five 50-inch and two 70-inch plasma TV screens hang from industrial grey girders.

The man overseeing all of this is 43-year-old George Allison whose last major credit was as art director for the Michael and Kirk Douglas movie "It Runs in the Family." He also designed the US$89 million set for ABC's "Good Morning America" as well as a number of sets used by President Bush at key speeches.

"It's about bringing the level of technology up from the flip chart to the modern age," Mr Allison told Army News. "It's trying to send a very clear message about technology and the use of it."

Air Force Colonel Ray Shepherd, CentCom's spokesman, said: "We use the latest technology in our military operations. It's only fitting we use it here."

- INDEPENDENT

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