THE MEDIA WAR: When the invasion of Iraq begins, everyone will watch it on TV, including Saddam Hussein. And that's part of the plan . . .Edward Gargan in Kuwait reports on how the military are using the media
As American and British troops prepare to move north from their staging bases towards the border with Iraq in preparation for an invasion, an elaborate and quite open psychological war is well under way, and the world's media have been summoned to the battle.
For two days, hundreds of journalists from dozens of countries have been bused to Army and Marine encampments across the Kuwaiti desert, where they will be "embedded" with a myriad of military units.
And while most of these journalists are on official lists and have been approved by the Department of Defence, dozens of others have cut private deals with individual commanders to document their war. Some have spent lavishly to ensure the success of their private arrangements, buying everything from desert-camouflaged jeeps to boxes of Havana cigars to distribute to the troops, or at least to their commanders.
This effort by the US military to open the war to correspondents is part of what one American officer called "a desire to show everything that goes on, everything". And by letting the media report everything short of the actual invasion plan and its timing, the military is also showing Iraqi President Saddam Hussein what he is in for, the officer said.
Already, journalists are expressing surprise at the access they have been given.
"We can see everything," said Mark Franchetti, a correspondent for the Sunday Times of London who is normally based in Moscow.
"I already know what our objective in Iraq is," said Franchetti, his head covered by an immense Russian-issue helmet and his torso wrapped in a Russian armoured vest. "I can't write it. I'm not supposed to talk about it. But we know."
So confident is the military about the swiftness of its victory that plans are already afoot to fly a CNN correspondent and a BBC reporter to the southern Iraqi city of Basra the moment it falls, according to a senior British officer.
"I'm not doing this so that the CNN correspondent gets another £100,000 in their salary," he said. "I'm doing it because the regime watches CNN. I want them to see what is happening." Under the current occupation plan, Basra is to be administered by British forces.
Among some of the media accompanying military units, there is a visible and palpable gung-ho attitude, something that has been encouraged, if only subtly, by the American military's press office here.
Many reporters have decked themselves out in uniforms virtually indistinguishable from those of the soldiers they will be covering, some even going so far as to have their names and the word "Correspondent" embroidered on their breast pockets. At least one reporter marched to the front with a large American flag clipped to his backpack.
The Fox Television Network dispatched former Marine Lt Col Oliver North, a conservative commentator, to a Marine unit to cover the war.
"Of course they're on our side," said a Navy officer who did not want his name used. "We want these guys on our side. The more the better."
The television news sources seen in the Middle East are devoting ever more coverage to the US and British forces in the desert, their live-fire exercises and their manoeuvres. "We want the world to see this," said the British officer, "and we want the Iraq regime to see this."
At a less public level, the American and British forces have stepped up their psychological operations inside Iraq against Iraqi forces. By e-mail, fax, cell-phone calls and leaflets, Iraqi commanders are being told exactly how they should indicate surrender and lay down their arms, according to a US officer.
"We're going to win," he said. "They're not." - (Newsday)