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[infowar.de] PsyOps-Pläne gegen Iraks WMD-Einheiten: unsicher und zweifelhaft



Infowar.de, http://userpage.fu-berlin.de/~bendrath/liste.html
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"Defense and intelligence officials say the problem with the psyops is
reaching the right Iraqi commanders. U.S. intelligence is unsure whether
or where Iraq is hiding chemical or biological weapons and who controls
them."

USA Today, 22.9.2002

Plan aimed at Iraqi commanders raises doubts

By John Diamond, USA TODAY

WASHINGTON - Defense and intelligence officials are raising doubts about
a classified Pentagon plan to persuade Iraqi commanders to hold back
their most lethal weapons in the event of war with the United States.

Officials familiar with the psychological operations, or "psyops," plan
say its aim is to persuade Iraqi weapons handlers to disobey any order
Saddam Hussein issues to launch chemical or biological attacks in the
face of a U.S. invasion. Methods would include hacking into Iraqi
military computers, dropping leaflets on Iraqi military bases, jamming
Iraqi radio and television and substituting signals sent by special U.S.
broadcasting aircraft, and contacting key officers through clandestine
intermediaries or even e-mail. 

Bush administration officials tout the plan as a way of mitigating the
risk of war with Iraq. Senior Pentagon and intelligence officials
counter that Saddam's commanders would get their orders at the point of
a gun. Disobedience, they argue, would amount to suicide.

The operations are part of a larger plan that seeks to persuade Iraqis
to drop their weapons once a U.S. attack begins. Such tactics paid
dividends in the 1991 Gulf War, as attested by the large number of Iraqi
prisoners found carrying leaflets from U.S. warplanes. The overall
psychological war plan, in turn, is a major facet of the Pentagon's
invasion plan for Iraq, which President Bush is considering.

One senior defense official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said
the psyops would have some value in persuading conventional Iraqi forces
to surrender. Even so, the official said, the men in charge of Iraqi
chemical or biological weapons and missile forces are likely Saddam's
most loyal soldiers, who are motivated by fanaticism or fear, or both.

Without disclosing details, senior Bush administration advisers have
pointed to psychological operations to allay concerns about the scenario
Pentagon officials and lawmakers most fear: That a U.S. attack on Iraq
would provoke Saddam into launching chemical or biological weapons
against U.S. troops or Israel. 

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld argues that Iraqi military officers,
faced with U.S. warnings that they could be treated as war criminals,
might refuse orders to launch these weapons.

"If (Saddam) were to issue such an order to use a chemical or biological
attack, that does not necessarily mean his orders would be carried out,"
the Defense chief told the House Armed Services Committee last week. "He
might not have anything to lose, but those beneath him in the chain of
command most certainly would have a great deal to lose. Wise Iraqis will
not obey orders to use weapons of mass destruction."

Secretary of State Colin Powell told lawmakers that the U.S. appeal to
Iraqi military officers has already begun. These public statements are
the visible part of a much more elaborate Pentagon plan to reach those
Iraqi officers who have physical control over Saddam's alleged arsenal
of chemical and biological weapons, and the few dozens of missiles that
could deliver them to targets in the Middle East.

Defense and intelligence officials say the problem with the psyops is
reaching the right Iraqi commanders. U.S. intelligence is unsure whether
or where Iraq is hiding chemical or biological weapons and who controls
them. Rumsfeld says that professional Iraqi officers control the
weapons, and that they are not necessarily loyal to Saddam. Some U.S.
intelligence officials say such weapons would almost certainly be
controlled by Saddam's most loyal inner circle.

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