By Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman

THE U. S. government this week launched its Arabic language satellite TV news station for Muslim Iraq. It is being produced in a studio – Grace Digital Media – controlled by fundamentalist Christians who are rabidly pro-Israel. That's Grace as in "by the Grace of God."

Grace Digital Media is controlled by a fundamentalist Christian millionaire, Cheryl Reagan, who also runs the affiliated Grace News Network. According to its Web site, Grace News Network is "dedicated to transmitting the evidence of God's presence in the world today."

"Grace News Network will be reporting the current secular news, along with aggressive proclamations that will 'change the news' to reflect the Kingdom of God and its purposes," GNN proclaims. The Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), the U.S. government agency producing the television news broadcasts for Iraq, likes to say it is the BBC of the USA.

BBG runs Radio Free Europe, Voice of America, and Radio Sawa – Arabic-language radio for the Middle East. "Our mission is clear," the BBG's Joan Mower told us. "To broadcast accurate and objective news about the United States and the world. We don't do propaganda, leafleting – we are like the BBC in that respect."

Well, then why hook up with Grace?

Mower said that GDM is a mainstream production house used by all kinds of mainstream news organizations. "Grace will have nothing to do with the editorial side of the news broadcast," she said. "They are renting us equipment, space, studio. The Grace personnel we use include technicians, production people but no editorial people."

But Mower said she couldn't get us a copy of the contract between the BBG and GDM. Nor could she say how GDM was chosen as the production studio.

GNN proclaims that it will be a "unique tool in the Lord's ministry plan for the world." "Grace News Network provides networking links and portals to various ministries and news services that will be of benefit to every Christian believer and seeker of truth," according to the company's mission statement.

The CEO of GNN is Thorne Auchter. That's the same Thorne Auchter who began the dismantling of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration under Presidents Reagan and George Bush I.

Auchter did not return our calls seeking comment for this story. While it's unclear whether GNN actually produces any news, it has produced a documentary movie titled Israel: Divine Destiny, which it showed at the National Press Club in September 2002.

The film is about "Israel's destiny and the United States' role in that destiny," according to GNN, which said it could not make a copy of the film available to us at this time, since it is now undergoing postproduction editing, nor could it provide a transcript.

The mainstream media has documented strong and growing ties between right-wing Republican Christian fundamentalists and right-wing Sharonist Israeli expansionists. This alliance is personified in Ralph Reed's Stand Up for Israel, a group formed to "mobilize Christians and other people of faith to support the State of Israel."

President George W. Bush has very strong ties to fundamentalist Christians, most notably Franklin Graham, the son of Rev. Billy Graham. Last week Franklin Graham delivered a Good Friday message at the Pentagon, despite an uproar over his previous slander of Islam as "a very evil and wicked religion."

Don Wagner, a professor of religion and the director of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at North Park University, an evangelical Christian college in Chicago, has written extensively about what he calls Christian Zionism, whose leaders he identifies as, among others, Ralph Reed, Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, Gary Bauer, and Franklin Graham.

"Christian Zionists have historically pointed to Genesis 12:3 – I will bless those who bless you. And the one who curses you, I will curse," Dr. Wagner said. "They have interpreted this to mean that individuals and nations who support the state of Israel will be blessed by God. It has come to mean political, economic, and moral support, often uncritically rendered to the state of Israel."

GNN seems to fit the mold. Mower says that the BBG is currently producing and transmitting six hours of news into Iraq including a dubbed version of the daily evening news from ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox, and PBS, plus three hours of its original news programming.

The BBG says it sees no problem in having Grace produce the evening news broadcast for Iraq. Given the brewing anti-American revolt through all sectors of Iraqi society, maybe it should reconsider.

We called GDM to speak with Cheryl Reagan. Her secretary told us that she has been away in extended vacation for more than a month – in Israel.

When will she back? we asked. No one knows, the secretary said.