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Hearts and minds' key to US Iraq strategy

By Andrew Koch

The well-publicised US strategy to create 'shock and awe' among Iraqi forces in the event of a conflict could well be the prelude to how wars of the information-age will be fought.

This strategy of fierce but swift military blows coupled with months of information warfare preparation is designed to persuade large portions of potential adversaries that co-operation with US forces is beneficial. It is also designed to signal that military resistance would bring certain failure.

Such a combination, while always a factor in war, has been brought to greater prominence in what is called 'effects-based planning', a key tool used in US war preparations for the first time on such a large scale.

As one US Central Command planner said, psychological operations (PSYOPs) will play "a crucial role ... to any conflict in Iraq and to the war on terrorism". This greater prominence and attention paid by senior US military leaders to winning hearts and minds is a marked difference from Operation 'Enduring Freedom' where operators said it took as much as 13 days to get PSYOPs through the approval process - often far too late to make a difference.

In planning the Iraq campaign strategy, senior US military officials plan to sideline large parts of Baghdad's armed forces by convincing them they will not be harmed. US PSYOP messages are telling Iraqi forces that unless they attack US troops or provide assistance in any use of weapons of mass destruction, they will be allowed to go free.

Those messages are being sent via traditional PSYOPs means such as dropping millions of leaflets over the country as well as beaming-in radio and television broadcasts from EC-130E Commando Solo aircraft. Also more innovative approaches, such as sending text messages directly to the cellphones of key Iraqi military commanders, are being used.

Yet for all its new-found prominence, Washington's ability to win 'hearts and minds' leaves much room for improvement, says Brig Gen James Parker, Director of the Center for Intelligence and Information Operations at US Special Operations Command (USSOCOM).

The US military is proficient at tactical-level PSYOPs, Gen Parker notes, but its lack of wider-ranging information campaigns "is a hole in the Department of Defense's [DoD's] capability right now". Therefore, he notes, "we are in the process of standing up a strategic PSYOPs capability". That capability, expected to replace the ill-fated Office of Strategic Influence, would address the long-term problem of winning hearts and minds.