A senator allegedly targeted said Thursday that he’s confident there will be a review of the facts, but played down the idea that he was manipulated.

The staff of Lt. Gen. William Caldwell, head of the effort to train Afghan security forces, ordered the information operations unit to compile profiles, voting records and other information on visiting lawmakers to leverage in a campaign to get more assistance, said a story Thursday on Rolling Stone’s website. It says the campaign also improperly targeted the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Mike Mullen, and others.

Caldwell’s office denied it. But a press statement from Kabul said that the commander of forces in Afghanistan, Gen. David Petraeus would order a probe “based on the information” in the article.

The military cell devoted to what is known as “information operations” believed their mission on arriving in Afghanistan in November 2009 was to assess the effects of US propaganda on the Taleban and local Afghan population, the magazine said, quoting Lt. Col. Michael Holmes, whom it identified as the leader of the five-man team.

Holmes said they resisted the order to compile information on congressional delegations that were visiting there and think of what information “to plant inside their heads.” He said they were subjected to retaliation for resisting.

“My job in psy-ops is to play with people’s heads, to get the enemy to behave the way we want them to behave,” Holmes is quoted as saying. “When you ask me to try to use these skills on senators and congressman, you’re crossing a line.”

Those singled out in the campaign included prominent senators, John McCain, a Republican, and Joe Lieberman, an independent; several members of the House of Representatives, the Czech ambassador to Afghanistan; the German interior minister, and a host of influential think-tank analysts, the story said, without identifying the international figures by name.