PsyOp:
  in The Invasion of Iraq:
(From PsyOp to PsyMop)

Spinning U.S.A. loss and Economic Costs of the War:
Spinning Iraqi Costs and Loss

by

T. R. Young

The Use of Social Psychology
When Cultures Clash

Most Interesting point to make about the use of high tech information flow systems in the war against the Iraq: Embedded Reporters in the Military together with all the other reporters, commentary and conflicting interpretations at home and abroad provide a reality check on all PsyOp efforts.   Future wars and political events will never be the informational property of Nations, Armies or Presidents...not even Tyrants.

General Conclusions:

The use of PsyOp by the Bush Team succeeded excellently well at home in the effort to demonize Saddam Hussein and to mobilize American Opinion in support of the Bush agenda in Iraq.

In the effort to neutralize Iraqi opposition, it had some minimal success.  Use of force was more successful in shaping behavior among Arabic Islam.

In the effort to shape opinion around the world, PsyOp efforts, including pressure on the members of the Security Council fell on deaf ears.  Bribery and Political pressure did help the Bush team acquire a 'Coalition of the Willing.'  Of which 40 some nations, two sent troops to fight in Iraq against public opinion at home: Britain and Australia.

Particular Conclusions:

A.  Can Modern applications of psychology override deep psychological structures in the core of self identity: religion, ethnicity, gender and/or patriotism?

    No...not easily nor for long.   Use of pamphlets did affect behavior; the use of Madison Avenue tactics by the Bush team were used by Iraqis as safe passage tickets when surrendering.  The content, hostile to Saddam did not affect the depth of emotional commitment to Islam, to Iraq nor their recent and abiding anger toward the West in general and the USA in particular as western countries try to impose both western values and economics on peoples in the Mid-East.

B. Can Military Force set aside deep psychological structures?  No...force intimidates and force masks those deep structures...as they did when Saddam was in power.  But core identities are not easily converted...as fundamentalist Baptists, Israelis or Muslims could tell the Bush team.

D.  Did the split between Sunni Muslims in the center of Iraq with Shia'ite Muslims in the South help win PsyOp?  There was some small effect but the real break came when the top Shia'ite religious leader ordered Shia'ites in Southern Iraq to end resistance to the American Military.  It is worth noting that Shia'ite forces in Basra continue to oppose the British there.  Again, Religion tops Madison Avenue...absent use of force.

E. Can High tech weapons defeat low tech self structures?  No...Islam will last long after the weapons leave...and the Americans...leave.

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Bonus Analysis:

George W. Bush Redeems the Sins of his Father
(Courtesy of Sigmund Freud

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Overview of PsyOp:
Sources and Purposes

A. Preparing Americans for war in Iraq.  The campaign to prepare Americans to support the war against Saddam began, I'm told, with a private group of consultants to firms around the world in 1988.  Mr. Wolfowitz, consultant to several U.S. firms and some foreign firms was mentioned prominently.  He is now Assistant Secretary of Defense to Mr. Rumsfeld.  Recently he resigned as Chair of an advisory committee to Mr. Bush on how to win the war...he remains as member.

That group, interested in replacing Germany, Russia, Syrian and France with their own clients in taking markets and increasing profit from Iraq...as all good consultants do, understood that Saddam Hussein stood in the way.

Then Iraq invaded Kuwait, a small oil-rich country to the south of Iraq.   That led the first President Bush to issue an Executive Order to use U.S. military might to repel that invasion.  The first war on Iraq began quickly...ended quickly saved Kuwaiti oil and left both Kurds in the North and Shia'ites in the South alone to face the fury of Saddam and his elite Republican guard.

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The first thing the present Bush Administration did as prelude to invasion was to promise that Baghdad would feel Shock and Awe on the first day of war.  Shock at the magnitude and violence of huge bombs and enough awe at the coming of the US Airforce: So much shock and so much awe that the will of Iraqis to fight would be weakened.  Such threats continue.

That didn't happened.  US Intelligence had word that Saddam and his advisors were meeting.  Mr. Bush was informed when and where.

The US Airforce, using laser guided bombs made more accurate by GPS, the Global Positioning System on US satellites, was used to start the war.  They hit the building.  And wondered if Saddam and his two sons were killed.  We still don't know.

But that was that for Shock and Awe.  Heavy bombing with accurate bombs began soon after. They did great damage but it was the smaller support bombing that destroyed the tanks and weapons of the Iraqi military.

The operative question for psychological warfare is whether bombing Baghdad will break or if it will solidify resistance when the troops do enter Baghdad.  As Mr. Rumsfeld. says, it is early days...too soon to know.

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Note: Kuwait was once another province of Iraq.   When oil was discovered in the region, the British drew lines in the sand to create a new nation with friendly Arabs in control of Kuwaiti oil.  British Petroleum and other oil companies had access to market the oil.  Saddam decided to invade Kuwait to control the oil and get the profits for the rest of Iraq...so he told the Iraqi people when he invaded Kuwait.

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Secretary of State Colin Powell was Chief of Staff of U.S. Armed Forces for the first President Bush during the Kuwaiti war in 1991.  Powell's strategy to fight was to use overwhelming military war and win quickly.  He did that and Iraq was repelled quickly.  Americans rejoiced in the victory.  The quick, clean and popular victory set up opinion in America; but Saddam remained in control of Iraq.  It was not part of the PsyOp of which we now speak but it was important as a basis for more systemic, planned and implemented use of social psychology later.

Later began when Mr. Bush, Senior, encouraged the Shia'ites in the south of Iraq and the Kurds in the north of Iraq to rise up and overthrow Saddam.  Then he pulled out of Iraq declaring victory; leaving the Kurds and the Shia'ites to face the terrible vengeance wreaked by Saddam...thousands were slaughtered by Iraqi armed forces unimpeded by the Bush administration.

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Much PsyOp is made by President Bush of the use of chemical weapons against the Kurds in the north of Iraq; little is made of the role of the Kurds in joining with Iran to fight against Iraq and Saddam in the 1980's.  After the Iranian-Iraqi war, 1988, Saddam exacted a terrible toll on Kurds.

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This abandonment by the senior Mr. Bush now comes back to haunt President Bush, his son.  Shia'ites and Sunnis are two major Islamic sects in Iraq; Shia'ites are in the majority but Saddam is Sunni and come from the middle of Iraq.  The two sects are not natural enemy since they are both committed to Islam.  But Saddam created Shia'ite anger when he used so much violence against them.  This anger was the basis for the assumption that Iraqis in the South would rise up and welcome American soldiers as liberators when the second war on Iraq began on the 20th of March, 2003.

Many Shia'ites would have welcomed American soldiers but the ten years between the two wars was not wasted by Saddam and his military advisors.  They placed Iraqi police and soldiers in southern Iraq to prevent any such welcome.  Shia'ites learned that they must suffer beating, death and imprisonment if they advocated uprising against Saddam.

Then too, U.S. public relation consultants, the Bush administration and those who planned psychological warfare in Iraq severely underestimated two deep cultural values of Shia'ites:

    A. The Solidarity of Muslims against the West in general and U.S. government in particular.

    B. The Nationalism of Shia'ites.   They are just as loyal to their country as Americans are to our country.   However much they may despise Saddam, Americans invaded their country in March.

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When the Bush administration hired public relations specialists from private firms to help win the psychological war at home and in Iraq, they hired people who knew little about Arabs, little about Muslims and little about Iraq.

Very successful in shaping American support for the present war in Iraq, they did not do well in shaping support of Shia'ites in Iraq.  Shia'ites did not raise up in response to the 25 million leaflets designed by P.R. people and dropped by US Airforce over Iraq.

But the demonization of Saddam spilled over to the demonization of all Iraqis for some Americans:

"The Iraqis are sick people and we are the chemotherapy," said Corporal Ryan Dupre. "I am starting to hate this country. Wait till I get hold of a friggin' Iraqi. No, I won't get hold of one. I'll just kill him."

                                            The Times, London, March 31, 2003

Cartoons and Culture.  The leaflets dropped by the millions used little balloons above the heads of crudely drawn victims of Saddam.  The balloons make sense in America, not in Iraq.  But they were tickets to show American soldiers so a great many kept them.

The Bush team expected the leaflets to lead thousands of Shia'ite soldiers to surrender quickly.  Some thousands did throw down their arms, did dress in civilian clothing and did follow instructions to surrender.  Thousands more Shia'ites stayed with the Iraqi army to fight the Americans who invade their country...the question of success of PsyOp continues to unravel.

International Aid organizations in America and around the world also expected Shia'ite refugees to desert Iraq and go to Iran, next to Iraq.  They prepared for tens of thousands; a few hundred came.  Shia'ites did not flee Iraq and Saddam's secret police; Sunni Muslims did flee Baghdad until the city was closed off.

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Spinning the failure to neutralize southern Iraqis by PsyOp.  There are several ways the Bush team tries to shape American opinion now that the uprising didn't occur.  They do not speak of the abandonment of Shia'ites to Saddam last time.  They had risen up and they had suffered the terrible vengeance of Saddam; they did not know whether the second President Bush would abandon them.  They stay, they watch, they wait.  If Bush has a quick and victory, they would welcome Americans; but the longer the war lasts, the less they take the chance.

What they do speak to Americans at home to explain the failure of PsyOp is:

    1.  Saddam has his secret police and his loyal soldiers in the South to watch and to kill those who advocate desertion to American soldiers or the families of those of who do so.  Much has been made of the tongue cut out of one such advocate; Americans don't like tongues cut off of dissidents.  The truth value of this blaming is unknown but is probably an important factor in the failure of PsyOp to neutralize Shia'ite Muslims.

    2. The Blame Game.   The question becomes; who to blame for that great failure to shape the minds and behaviors of Shia'ites in the South.  Not President Bush, nor Rumsfeld. nor Mr. Powell nor the hired P.R. people.  Most officials and American media blame Saddam...leader of an Evil Empire.

At home, some reporters and American-Iraqi scholar blame Mr. Bush and his bad advice from PsyOp people.  Some military analysts, consultant to ABC, CBS, CNN and other media blame those who planned the war.  President Bush wanted a quick victory; quick victory meant Regime Change. 

To get rid of Saddam, Mr. Bush and his Military planners decided to by-pass the south, circle out into the desert and go directly to Baghdad, capture it and get rid of Saddam.  So military strategy became secondary to a political problem: to keep support of Americans, a quick victory became essential.

It is early days yet but it looks like the game plan for quick victory worked.  The decision to move fast and take the Baghdad Airport was a stroke of military genius that redeemed the promise of President Bush to offer the American Public a entertaining and effective little war lasting only 30 days..the middle of March to the middle of April.  But we may be back in the middle of March if

Bypass of the south (where there was expected little resistance and much rejoicing) may have been a strategic error in psychological warfare.  Had US forces taken Basra, in the South, quickly, PsyOp might have worked better...so the analysis of US military strategy goes from those who criticize the game plan of the Bush Administration.

Blaming the Army.  Mr. Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense in the Bush administration avoided blame by saying that he had nothing to do with the game plan--that the Commander-in-Chief of US forces in Iraq, General Franks, designed the war game plan for a quick victory; that he, Rumsfeld is not to blame for the present slow-down.

General Franks accepted the blame for the war game.  And now he and the Bush administration are spinning the use of fast movement to Baghdad and circling around Basra.  The Bush team and General Franks, in news conferences, explain to the American publics that it is early days, the war game plan is a good one and Americans should trust it.  In the meantime, the President has called up another 100,000 troops to go to Iraq.  It looks like a change in war game rather than trust in it by the Bush administration.

British soldiers are now fighting street to street in Basra, a city which should have welcomed them with open arms given the social psychology of it all.

It might be worth noting that, if the war game planners had used the strategy of Mr. Powell, and had used overwhelming might to take Basra, instead of leaving it to a few thousand British soldiers, Basra might now be in the hands of the US military.   A quick victory there might subvert resistance in Baghdad and along the way to Baghdad.  And made the war easier for American troops when the moved north to take Baghdad.

But it wasn't.

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The Coalition and World Opinion.   The Bush administration, in its drive for a quick victory has alienated world public opinion.  Around the world from Japan to Malaysia to Mexico as well as in most of Europe including England, public opinion is against the US invasion of Iraq.

There are several social psychological factors which fuel anti-American policy in Iraq by the rest of the world.

    1. Mr. Colin Powell, now Secretary of State, was the sole dissenter on the Bush team to plan the war.  Most wanted to go in quick, do the job and begin the end game.

Mr. Powell, sensitive to world opinion, wanted Mr. Bush to wait for the United Nations to make the final decision.  Mr. Bush agreed to wait...while American troops waited in Kuwait and Saddam's military had time to organize defense against the invasion they were sure would come.

There were three members of the UN Security Council, the governing body body for UN decisions to use force around the world who refused to accept the urgings of Mr. Powell to endorse the invasion of Iraq.

France, Germany and Russia all promised a veto of any more Resolutions by the Security Council to endorse US policy in Iraq.

Spinning the failure to get the UN with the game plan.

The Bush Administration did two things to spin that failure:

    1. Bush condemned France as an obstructionist and as a nation anxious to reduce America as the only supra power in the world.

    2. Bush decided to involve the UN in Humanitarian Aid (rather than leaving it to American troops (which would help win the hearts and minds of Iraqis...out of gratitude for American generosity.

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Qua Vadis Hollywood.  In WWII, Hollywood got on board the war effort early; super stars went on US Bond drives, entertained troops in masse... and made movies which celebrated the US after the attack on Pearl Harbor.  Early on, Hollywood used cinema to  enjoin the USA in the war against Nazi Germany...Casablanca came out in 1943 or so...and helped reinforce social opinion against the Nazis.

And, later, Hollywood producers cleared out 'commie' actors, directors and writers.

Today, after Vietnam against which many Hollywood stars protested, many now protest the war in Iraq.

But, given 60, 70, and 80% favorable public opinion in favor of the war, even now, Hollywood producers are scrambling to provide movies which help legitimate the war in Iraq.  Potential audiences are just too large to ignore.

Hollywood will sell whatever brings a larger box-office.