[infowar.de] Newsweek 15.01.07: How the U.S. Is Losing the PR War in Iraq

[Georg Schoefbaenker <schoefbaenker -! - aon - at>]

URL: 
<http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16497895/site/newsweek/>http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16497895/site/newsweek/

How the U.S. Is Losing the PR War in Iraq

Insurgents using simple cell-phone cameras, laptop editing programs and the 
Web are beating the United States in the fierce battle for Iraqi public 
opinion.
By Scott Johnson
Newsweek

Jan. 15, 2007 issue - For nearly four years, U.S. military officials have 
briefed the Baghdad press corps from behind an imposing wooden podium. No 
longer. Last week U.S. military spokesman Maj. Gen. William Caldwell 
relaxed with reporters around a "media roundtable." He replaced the 
cumbersome headset once used for Arabic translations with a discreet 
earpiece. He cut short his opening statement, allowing for more 
back-and-forth banter. Yet even as Iraq emerged from the deadliest month in 
2006 for American soldiers, Caldwell maintained the relentlessly upbeat 
patter that has come to characterize the briefings. "The key difference 
you're going to see in 2007," he said proudly, "is this is truly the year 
of transition and adaptation."

Another year, another message. In the United States this week, President 
George W. Bush's speech laying out his new strategy for Iraq will be 
scrutinized for its specifics­the numbers of an anticipated troop surge, 
the money for reconstruction and jobs programs. But at least as critical to 
success may be whether Bush is convincing. A draft report recently produced 
by the Baghdad embassy's director of strategic communications Ginger Cruz 
and obtained by NEWSWEEK makes the stakes clear: "Without popular support 
> from US population, there is the risk that troops will be pulled back ... 
Thus there is a vital need to save popular support via message." Under the 
heading DOMESTIC MESSAGES, Cruz goes on to recommend 16 themes to reinforce 
with the American public, several of which Bush is likely to hit: "vitally 
important we succeed"; "actively working on new approaches"; "there are no 
quick or easy answers."

What's even more telling is that the IRAQI MESSAGES­the very next 
section­are still "TBD," to be determined. Indeed, the document so much as 
admits that despite spending hundreds of millions of dollars, the United 
States has lost the battle for Iraqi public opinion: "Insurgents, sectarian 
elements, and others are taking control of the message at the public 
level." Videos of U.S. soldiers being shot and blown up, and of the bloody 
work of sectarian death squads, are now pervasive. The images inspire new 
recruits and intimidate those who might stand against them. "Inadequate 
message control in Iraq," the draft warns, "is feeding the escalating cycle 
of violence." (A U.S. Embassy spokesperson claims the document reflects 
Cruz's personal views, not official policy.)

Sunni insurgents in particular have become expert at using technology to 
underscore­some would say exaggerate­their effectiveness. "The 
sophistication of the way the enemy is using the news media is huge," Lt. 
Gen. Peter Chiarelli, the former commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, told 
NEWSWEEK just before he returned to the United States. Most large-scale 
attacks on U.S. forces are now filmed, often from multiple camera angles, 
and with high-resolution cameras. The footage is slickly edited into 
dramatic narratives: quick-cut images of Humvees exploding or U.S. soldiers 
being felled by snipers are set to inspiring religious soundtracks or 
chanting, which lends them a triumphal feel. In some cases, U.S. officials 
believe, insurgents attack American forces primarily to generate fresh footage.

Guerrillas have always sought alternative technologies to undermine their 
better-equipped enemies. What's different now is the power and 
accessibility of such tools. Production work that once required a studio 
can now be done on a laptop. Compilation videos of attacks on U.S. forces 
sell in Baghdad markets for as little as 50 cents on video CDs. 
Advancements in cell-phone technology have made such devices particularly 
useful. Their small video files­the filming of Saddam Hussein's hanging 
took up just over one megabyte­are especially easy to download and 
disseminate. "Literally, it's only hours after an attack and [the videos] 
are available," says Andrew Garfield, a British counterinsurgency expert 
who has advised U.S. forces in Baghdad. "You can really say it's only a 
cell-phone call away."

What the insurgents understand better than the Americans is how Iraqis 
consume information. Tapes of beheadings are stored on cell phones along 
with baby pictures and wedding videos. Popular Arab satellite channels like 
Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiya air far more graphic images than are typically 
seen on U.S. TV­leaving the impression, say U.S. military officials, that 
America is on the run. At the extreme is the Zawra channel, run by former 
Sunni parliamentarian Mishan Jibouri, who fled to Syria last year after 
being accused of corruption. (Jibouri says he's being persecuted for 
political reasons, and can return to Iraq whenever he wants.) Since 
November the channel has been spewing out an unending series of videos 
showing American soldiers being killed in sniper and IED attacks. The clips 
are accompanied by commentary, often in English, admonishing Iraqis to 
"focus your utmost rage against the occupation." Among Sunnis and even some 
Shiites, Zawra has become one of the most popular stations in Iraq. "I get 
e-mails from girls in their 20s from Arab countries; some of them are very 
wealthy," Jibouri boasts. "Some offer to work for free, some offer money."

The U.S. military's response, on the other hand, usually sticks to 
traditional channels like press releases. These can take hours to prepare 
and are often outdated by the time they're issued. Lt. Col. Barry Johnson, 
director of the military's press operations in Baghdad until this past 
September, complains that all military-related information has to be 
processed upward through a laborious and bureaucratic chain of command. 
"The military wants to control the environment around it, but as we try to 
[do so], it only slows us down further," he says. "All too often, the 
easiest decision we made was just not to talk about [the story] at all, and 
then you absolutely lose your ability to frame what's going on."

An even bigger problem, say other U.S. officials, may be the message 
itself. The videos on Zawra are powerful precisely because they confirm the 
preconceptions many Iraqis have about the occupation. Col. William Darley, 
editor of the influential Military Review at the Combined Arms Center in 
Fort Leavenworth, Kans., argues that merely changing podiums in the 
briefing room misses the point. "You can cook up a kind of shrewd, New York 
City-style advertising campaign for a candy bar, and if the candy bar 
tastes lousy, you can't sell it," says Darley. "If Iraq has no electricity, 
spotty medical care, no security, then [we] cannot succeed."

The consequences of losing the propaganda battle are real. "One of these 
videos is worth a division of tanks to those people," says Robert Steele, a 
former U.S. Marine Corps intelligence officer. Not only do the insurgent 
videos draw recruits and donations, they don't give ordinary Iraqis much 
incentive to cooperate with the Americans. Videos put out by sectarian 
death squads, like the one shown to NEWSWEEK by the watchdog SITE institute 
in which a Sunni militiaman saws the head off a Shiite prisoner with a 
five-inch knife, enrage the targeted community. The release of the ghoulish 
video of Saddam's hanging prompted thousands of Sunnis to protest in Anbar 
province. Residents of Fallujah­the target of a multimillion-dollar 
hearts-and-minds campaign­renamed the city's main thoroughfare the Street 
of the Martyr Saddam Hussein.

The damage goes beyond Iraq. Al Qaeda's media arm, As-Sahab ("The Cloud") 
has similarly improved the quality and frequency of its videos; the group, 
says former State Department adviser Philip Zelikow, uses "the Internet to 
provide a sense of virtual identity" now that its Afghan training camps 
have largely been destroyed. The question is how to fight back, when 
today's most powerful technologies­the Web, cell phones­are better suited 
to small, nimble organizations. Back in the 1930s national leaders could 
almost wholly control the framing of their messages, says Donald Shaw, a 
professor of media theory at the University of North Carolina at Chapel 
Hill who has written about reforms for military public-affairs officers. 
But now, "the podium has lost its influence." For those who once stood 
behind it, that message at least is very clear.

With Michael Hastings in Baghdad and Benjamin Sutherland in Treviso