Despite ‘coalition’ forces now being engaged in a guerilla war (which no-one seems to have foreseen), analysis of the information war which accompanied the invasion of Iraq has begun to appear. Lieutenant-Colonel Steven Collins, head of PSYOPS in the Operations Division at NATO Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe in Mons, Belgium, had a think about the ‘perception management operations’ in ‘Mind Games’ on the NATO Web site. (1)
‘Perception management includes all actions used to influence the attitudes and objective reasoning of foreign audiences and consists of Public Diplomacy, Psychological Operations (PSYOPS), Public Information, Deception and Covert Action.’
Looking at the Iraqi operations, Collins didn’t see much to cheer about. Despite ‘the most co-ordinated, best-funded, US strategic perception-management structure since the 1980s’, 80 million leaflets and TV and radio stations, nothing happened.
‘Despite this massive effort, there was little demonstrated success in US public-diplomacy efforts prior to Operation…. Effective public diplomacy takes a sustained effort and a long-term view….Within the Islamic world, US public-diplomacy activities have to date failed to generate much return. Immediate, positive results may be impossible to achieve.’
Why did it fail? Apart from the obvious point that few in the Middle East will believe American propaganda, a point which Collins cannot make, Collins notes:
‘The increase in the number of satellite television news services and internet connections makes it ever more difficult to influence opinions globally.’
It is hard to manage perceptions when people are watching stations not under US control! Or, as Collins puts it:
‘The explosion in the number of news providers allows viewers to read or see the news that reinforces their own prejudices and fixed opinions.'(2)
Al-Jazeera looms large in Collin’s view – hence (though of course he doesn’t say it) the assault on the al-Jazeera station. Collins also blames them sneaky Iraqis.
‘Reportedly, during the conflict, the Iraqi Information Agency recognised the power of al-Jazeera and went so far as to infiltrate that organisation with its agents in order to help slant the coverage to be more pro-Iraqi’ (emphasis added).
He cites no perceptible psy-ops effects and essentially runs the old Greeks and Romans angle so beloved of the Brits: the Americans are rich but crude and incompetent. Then he makes a pitch for his particular expertise.
‘Since there is often an informational gap to be filled and people psychologically need reassurance and comforting, this is where PSYOPS can make a great difference. This is also an area where the United Kingdom and United States can learn from NATO. NATO’s experience in both Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo give it considerable post-conflict PSYOPS expertise. Moreover, the posts in the PSYOPS branches at SFOR and KFOR headquarters are filled by individuals who have become skilled in this field, which can differ greatly from PSYOPS conducted during conflict. The United Kingdom and United States would do well to study NATO’s experience with perception management in the Balkans and apply it to their current activities in Iraq.’
Collins makes no reference at all to the massive ‘perception management’ operations run at the UK and US populations. These operations have been analysed in a remarkable document, ‘Summary of a Study of Strategic Influence, Perception Management, Strategic Information Warfare and Strategic Psychological Operations in Gulf II’ by Sam Gardiner, Colonel, USAF (Retired).(3) This is by far the most important post Gulf War 2 document to date and a landmark in the analysis of state disinformation and perception management. Gardiner has done what I didn’t have the patience to do: he has logged and followed over 50 disinformation stories run by ‘the coalition’. If you read nothing else referred to in this issue, read this. (4)
Hutton
So, in the third week of the Hutton inquiry, it all began to emerge. Alastair Campbell rewrote the dossier ‘for presentational purposes’ and Jonathan Powell rewrote it to convert Iraqi weapons from defensive to offensive. How interesting – if unsurprising – that the final edits are done by Blair’s two closest advisors. But by the time Hutton heard this, the memo from Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC) chair John Scarlett had been released which referred to the JIC’s ‘customers’.(5) Once that concept has been taken on board the game is up as far as getting anything even remotely resembling a dispassionate analysis.
Making this point in the Evening Standard 5 September, ‘Dossier was an abuse of intelligence’, Sir Roderick Braithwaite, Chairman of the JIC in 1992-1993, included the following comment:
‘Every Tom Dick and Harry in the Prime Minister’s press office felt free to make suggestions…… the JIC thus lost its innocence (6) without achieving the Prime Minister’s object……..the whole unedifying story is likely to enter folk lore as an awful warning of what happens if you let politicians fiddle with intelligence.’
On the final day, the one-day session tacked on at the end, Sir Kevin Tebbitt, Permanent Secretary at the Ministry of Defence, very carefully stuck the knife into Blair telling Lord Hutton that Blair had chaired the meeting which decided to identify Dr Kelly to the media. This statement told Hutton that Blair had lied; for on 22 July, on a plane between Shanghai and Hong Kong, Blair told reporters: ‘I did not authorise the leaking of the name of Dr Kelly.’ However Blair did not tell Hutton this and his Lordship may find himself minded to pretend he didn’t know. There may be even be some lawyer’s wriggle room in the use of ‘authorise’; but an opposition party even half awake should be able to do some serious damage with this.
Glenmore Trenear-Harvey, who commented regularly on Hutton on television, sent out an e-mail in September, pointing out:
‘….when one of the Cabinet Office Security Policy Division wonks writes on 21 July 2003 (CAB /18/0065) to John Scarlett (with a copy to Sir David Oman) regarding leaks to the media of Scarlett’s note to Alastair of 20th September 2002. He refers to MI5’s analysis of the “45 minute report” and highlights the original circulation of the document to various departments.
The usual suspects are there: SIS, MI5, GCHQ and MOD get between 7 copies for MI5 and 20 copies for MI6. But also listed are 32 (yes 32) copies for the DTI. Why? I wonder. Some kind of export initiative?’
Or the DTI is full of spooks under cover?
Hearing No. 10 spokesman Tom Kelly telling some British journalists that Dr David Kelly was a ‘Walter Mitty character’ must have made Colin Wallace smile. For this is how the MOD briefed journalists about Wallace during his trial for murder in 1981.
Corinne Souza pointed out to me that the only people using the Walter Mitty expression these days are spin-doctors.
Notes
1 < http://www.nato.int/docu/review/2003/issue2/english/art4.htmlxt issue >
2 This sentence is a classic example of the Eurocentric and patronising attitudes which the Arab world resents so much. And the fact that Collins – a psy-ops expert – cannot see this says a great deal.
3 This is in PDF format at < http://www.usnews.com/usnews/politics/ whispers/documents/ truth_1.pdf > and then 2.pdf, 3.pdf, 4.pdf, 5.pdf. The latest issue of The Spokesman, no 80, ‘The Strangelove Doctrine’, contains a good deal on Iraq, Hutton and the American empire. (£5.00 from Russell House, Bulwell Lane, Nottingham, NG6 0BT; < www. spokesmanbooks.com > )
4. This ‘perception management’ has continued since the war. We have had the US Army sending out ‘things are going fine’ letters to US newspapers purportedly written by soldiers (see < www.theolympian.com/home/news/20031011/frontpage/121390.shtml>) and the manipulation of the Jessica Lynch story is in the hands of the same person who brought us the ‘babies-snatched-from-incubators’ story in Gulf War 1, Lauri Fitz-Pegado. See Andrew Buncombe’s story from the Independent at < www.independent-media.tv/item.cfm?fmedia_id=3224&fcategory_desc=Under%20 Reported >
5 See ‘Speaking of the intelligence community: A guide to intelligence-speak, as used by John Scarlett, chairman of the joint intelligence committee’, Wednesday 27 August, Guardian Unlimited < www.guardian.co.uk/hutton/story/0,13822,1029935,00.html >
6 A euphemism, in this instance, for ‘got fucked’.