[Media-watch] Scotsman report

[david Miller]

http://www.thescotsman.co.uk/international.cfm?id=360422003
Wed 26 Mar 2003
Good news, no news and the infamous fog of war 

TIM RIPLEY AT US CENTRAL COMMAND IN QATAR 
AT GENERAL Tommy Franks¹s headquarters, it is easy to work out whether the day¹s news is good or bad. 

When there are positive developments, press officers prowl the corridors of the press centre dispensing upbeat reports from pre-prepared scripts, declaring Iraqi towns have been liberated and that humanitarian aid is about to be delivered. 

Yet if American and British troops have suffered any sort of battlefield reverse, the spin doctors retreat into their officers at press centre and await instructions from London and Washington. 

While it is not surprising that there might be confusion about events on a distant battlefield - the famous "fog of war" - behind the scenes it is clear that script writers in London and Washington are crafting the coalition¹s "message" as part of a concerted "strategic information operations" campaign. 

Basically, the press are stuck in the middle of a global propaganda war, which sees the White House spokesman, Ari Fleischer, and the No 10 spin chief, Alastair Campbell, pitted against Saddam Hussein. 

Mr Campbell and Mr Fleischer have created a powerful machine of transatlantic spin experts who generate position papers, lines to take and "background bullet points" 24 hours a day. 

This stuff is disseminated by e-mail and pager throughout the American and British governments, into allied military command posts in the Gulf and finally out to frontline troops in the desert. 

The result is an almost continuous wall of on-message soundbites portraying the United States¹ and British advance as relentless, and insisting that the Iraqi regime is doomed. 

Five days into Operation Iraqi Freedom - another on-message phrase in itself - and that well-worn military soundbite "no plan survives contact with the enemy", is on everybody¹s lips here. While on the battlefield, the Iraqis seem to be upsetting US plans by having the temerity to fight back, the spin doctors are also finding things are not all going their way. 

Plans to fly CNN into the heart of a liberated Basra by helicopter to film British troops being welcomed by a joyous population have had to be put "temporarily on hold", the media gathered at Central Command in Qatar have been informed. 

The string of helicopter accidents, friendly-fire incidents and the inability of US and British troops to clear out pockets of by-passed Iraqi resistance have meant the spin doctors have been constantly trying to get on top of events, getting their story straight and rapidly devise new lines to take. While they were prepared for some "bad news" stories - the shooting down of aircraft and captured pilots being paraded on television - from their experience of previous conflicts, and had pre-prepared statements ready, in many cases they are now in unchartered territory. 

For the British spin corps, the situation around Basra and Umm Qasr is tying them in knots. Within hours of British troops rolling into Iraq last Thursday night, according to "military sources" here, Umm Qasr "had fallen". 

Then it had "been cleared" and, as of yesterday morning, it was "secure". 

All these statements have to be qualified by the fact that scores, possibly hundreds, of armed Iraqis still seem to be in the town refusing to be "liberated". 

If the spin is to be believed, the seizure of the port is a benign act to help the Iraqi people receive humanitarian aid. The fact that it is also intended to become the main supply port for British and US troops in Iraq gets low billing. 

Basra is even more of a problem for the British government and its spin machine. 

Until the city¹s population began to show signs of rising up against the Saddam regime last night, they appeared to be firmly under the control of leaders loyal to Baghdad, who are rallying stiff resistance to British troops positioned around its western fringes. British artillery has been pounding positions in the city, suggesting formed units of Iraqi troops loyal to Baghdad are still in the city fighting back. 

The Iraqi division defending the city, according to US military spokesmen, had melted away on Thursday after being overrun by advancing coalition troops. 

Yesterday, it was reported to have re-grouped and to be back in position, and back in action. 

While British commanders are busy working out how to get into the city and deliver humanitarian aid, the spin machine must also be trying to generate new ideas about how to explain away the loyalty of Basra¹s population to Saddam. If British troops do need to assault the city in bloody street-fighting, that will result in widespread destruction and heavy loss of life - then they may have to trot out a well-worn soundbite from the Vietnam war. 

In an incident after the US Air Force had carpet-bombed a south Vietnamese town to clear out Viet Cong guerrillas, an American officer famously commented: "We had to destroy the town to save it". 

These are tense times for the British government and, not surprisingly, it is desperate to keep on top of the news agenda. The Sun, for example, is being rewarded for its staunch support of the war effort with the first interview of the conflict with General Franks, who unsurprisingly used the opportunity to praise the "vital" British contribution to the war effort. 

How this spin effort plays in the Middle East, where outside the ruling elites there is zero support for the war, is a different matter. 

If the comment of an "information official" at a large US embassy in the Gulf is anything to go by, the propaganda war could be in serious trouble. 

"I have a lot of Œcrapola¹ in my office - all the official policy statements," he said. "I am inundated with the message everyday. My job is to give it to the locals who don¹t want it."