Slide 1:THE SEAMLESSNESS OF THE INFORMATION SPACE

‘If we must begin a military campaign, it will be directed against the lawless men who rule your country and not against you’‘Do not obey any command to use weapons of mass destruction against anyone, including the Iraqi people’ (G. Bush, Remarks by the President, Address to the Nation, March 17 2003)

Slide 2:THE PSYOP LEAFLETS

Slide 3:THE PSYOP LEAFLETS

Slide 4:PROFESSIONALISM

Some critical questions: There has been much talk of liberation. Isn’t there a danger that we are seeing now that many Iraqis regard Western forces as invaders and occupiers? There are significant elements in Basra who are hugely loyal to the regime . Now doesn’t that mean that your strategy needs a rethink and in fact that coalition forces are in danger of being overstretched? (PM Press Conference, March 25 2003)

Slide 5:“THIRD PARTY” ACTORS

The “TV generals”: “We are seeing what the military calls a ‘pause’. The coalition has stopped to rearm and refit. They’ve sort of run out of steam…” The Media: The negative commentary was predictable: the offensive was “bogged down”, “stalled”, “stymied”, in the face of stiffening resistance and mounting casualties (Extracted from American Soldier by General Tommy Franks, 2004)

Slide 6:Jim Wilkinson (General Franks’ Director of Strategic Communications): “General, what am I supposed to do about these motherf****** TV generals?”

Slide 7:THE ENEMY

Muhammed Saeed al-Sahaf (Iraqi Information Minister): “The air bombers of the criminal Bush struck this marketplace”…”hundreds” of innocent civilians had been killed or wounded J.Wilkinson (Director of Strategic Communications): “We think it was an Iraqi missile, probably an SA-2 fired two nights ago, unguided…It hit that marketplace before dawn. There was nobody on the street.” General Franks: “So, we’ve got no problem” J. Wilkinson: “We might, sir…All the headlines [Arabic newspapers] feature that line: ‘hundreds of dead and wounded’…our pals in the BBC are already running with Baghdad Bob’s version.”