Hearts, minds, leaflets: War's psychological side

Mr. Rumsfeld announced last week that all his press conferences will now be broadcast into Iraq by Commando Solo, modified Air Force EC-130 cargo planes. The aircraft, part of the 193rd Special Operations Wing, can broadcast real-time radio and television and are currently operating along Iraq's borders, an Air Force spokesman said.

Meanwhile, Pentagon officials are seeking to discredit Iraqi propaganda - especially wartime tactics putting civilians at risk - outlined in a White House report entitled "Apparatus of Lies: Saddam's Disinformation and Propaganda 1990-2003."

Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, this month condemned Iraq's reported plans to recruit human shields. Similarly, Rumsfeld has criticized the placing of Iraqi military equipment near civilian areas, a practice apparent in videos taken by US aircraft.

"The Iraqi regime puts military capabilities - airplanes, tanks, ammunition - in direct proximity to schools and hospitals and orphanages and mosques," he said.

Pentagon plans to place American and foreign reporters with US military units in a war are also aimed, in part, at countering Iraqi deception, Rumsfeld acknowledged during a recent television interview.

Meanwhile, the US military is expanding "psychological operations" (PSYOP) aimed at turning Iraqi troops, citizens, and power brokers against Hussein. Millions of leaflets dropped over Iraq since November have warned soldiers not to fight, and urged people to tune into five-hour daily US radio programs broadcast by Commando Solo planes. The 4th Psychological Operations Group at Fort Bragg, N.C., produces the messages with help from Iraqis.

Leaflets and broadcasts appeal to the pride of Iraqi troops. "Soldiers of Iraq, Saddam does not care for the military of Iraq," says one recent broadcast. "Hussein uses his soldiers as puppets, not for the glory of Iraq but for his own personal glory." Hussein, it notes, ordered that returning Iraqi war prisoners have their ears cut off, and he had land mines placed behind Iraqi troop positions in the Gulf War.

In the case of war, leaflets would likely be coordinated with bombings of specified positions, warning Iraqi troops to flee or die - a strategy credited with inciting tens of thousands of Iraqi surrenders in 1991.

A new Pentagon e-mail campaign is also appealing to the self-interest of senior Iraqi officers and others who make up the regime's inner circle, in an effort to drive a wedge between them and Hussein, defense officials say. Iraq reportedly responded to the e-mails by tightening Internet access.

Military deception, including false troop maneuvers, is another key information tool - one that can be facilitated by an unwitting media, Rumsfeld says. In 1991, the US-led alliance successfully concealed the main thrust of its attack by staging highly publicized mock amphibious landings of Marines off Kuwait's coast. It also used metal and fabric decoys of M-1 tanks.

Similarly, a recent flurry of Pentagon announcements on troop deployments could mask which units would play a central role in an invasion - and when. "With the avalanche of information coming out of the US, the Iraqis reach the point where all they know is we aren't coming from Mars," says Daniel Kuehl, a professor of information warfare at the National Defense University. "Information overload is a new form of fog or friction."

During a war, US forces would disrupt Iraqi communications with electronic jamming, computer-network attacks, and, perhaps, new microwave technology. Iraq's state-controlled media would be replaced initially by US broadcasting; plans are under way to set up nongovernment Iraqi media soon after, Pentagon officials say.

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