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Prof Taylor on PSYOPS in The New Scientist 
Psychological warfare in Iraq brings success 18:29 21 March 03 NewScientist.com news service The back of this leaflet, dropped on 18 March, reads: "Coalition forces do not wish to harm the noble people of Iraq. To ensure your safety, avoid areas occupied by military personnel." The intense psychological war being waged by the US against Iraq had its first major success on Friday, with the surrender of up to 250 Iraqi soldiers at the southern port of Umm Qasr. And some experts predict this "trickle" will turn into a "flood". The US are employing what they call "weapons of mass persuasion" to convince Iraqi soldiers not resist the allied forces and to lay down their arms instead. Their message is being delivered in radio broadcasts and millions of leaflets dropped from the air. Many of the leaflets work by inducing fear of the sheer firepower of the coalition forces, says Phil Taylor, an expert on psychological warfare at Leeds University, UK. But others carry threats of war criminal prosecutions for those conducting chemical weapon attacks and reassurances that the regime of Saddam Hussein is the target, not civilians or regular soldiers. Taylor says the messages have a "very powerful" effect on an army of conscripts, who have not chosen to be on the battlefield. On Thursday, US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld claimed that there was "good evidence" that the psychological operations were working. Cheaper option The military is aiming to make the "psy-ops" even more successful than in the 1991 Gulf war. Then, 69,000 Iraqi soldiers were persuaded to surrender by an operation costing a mere 0.5 per cent of total war effort. In 1991, a total of 29 million leaflets had been dropped by the end of the conflict. In contrast, by Friday - the second day of the war - 20 million leaflets had already been dropped. This operation began in late November 2002. Taylor told New Scientist the latest campaign was stronger than in 1991 in two ways. Firstly the messages are now coming from the very top - US President George W Bush and Rumsfeld. Secondly, this time Iraqis are being told they could have a role in a new Iraq. Rumsfeld declared to the Iraqi people: "You will have a place in a free Iraq if you do the right thing. But if you follow Saddam Hussein's orders, you will share his fate. And the choice is yours." He warned Iraqis to stay indoors and listen to coalition radio stations for advice on how to stay safe. Crack troops Rumsfeld also claimed communications had been opened with some senior Iraqi officials, including the elite soldiers of Iraq's Republican Guard. Taylor says the real test of the psy-ops would be whether it could "crack" these troops. In Kosovo, he notes, 103 million leaflets were dropped without effect because the Serb soldiers were volunteer professionals, not conscripts. However, Kate Morris, an expert in propaganda at King's College London, thinks there is another important difference between the current situation and 1991. Successful psy-ops relies on "a combination of propaganda of word and propaganda of deed. You have to back up your threat," she told New Scientist. She says concern for international opinion means the forces fighting this war cannot deploy as much deadly force as in 1991. "It's far too early to tell" if the psy-ops will work, she says. Shaoni Bhattacharya |