The Office of Strategic Influence, or OSI, was a department created by the United States Department of Defense on October 30, 2001, to support the War on Terrorism through psychological operations in targeted countries. The closure of the office was announced by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld soon after its existence became publicly known.The OSI would have been a center for the creation of propaganda materials, for the stated purpose of misleading enemy forces or foreign civilian populations. After information on the office spread through US and foreign media in mid February 2002, intense discussions on purpose and scope of the office were reported. The discussions culminated in a public statement by Rumsfeld in late February that the office has been closed down.Some argue that due to its secretive nature and stated purposes the existence of such an agency would be hard to determine. In fact, in November 2002, Rumsfeld stated in an interview that only the name of the office was