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Wednesday,
April 2, 2003, Chandigarh, India  
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Allies
jump the gun in propaganda war 8,700 bombs, missiles launched at Iraq: Pentagon Saddam decorates
brave troops IRAQ WAR DIARY
Pak rejects US charge on N-proliferation |
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Landslide buries 400 homes;
700 missing
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Allies jump the gun in propaganda war London, April 1 In the latest example yesterday, British forces retracted a claim that they had captured an Iraqi general in clashes with paramilitaries in southern Iraq, saying they had misidentified an Iraqi officer. Just 12 days into the war, the list of inaccuracies ranges from Iraqi uprisings to premature fall of Iraq’s second city of Basra, as Britain and the USA attempt to vindicate their controversial decision to go to war. But why do they repeatedly fall into the same trap? Part of the problem is Britain and America are under pressure politically to make the war a success, but have an unclear strategy for psychological warfare, say analysts. That comes against the backdrop of needing to keep up with the furious pace of media covering minute-by-minute developments in the conflict on 24-hour television news. “It’s not that the authorities are trying to create disinformation. In this media-ubiquitous world, they have learned that doesn’t work,” said Mr Michael Clarke, Director of the International Policy Institute at Kings College, London. “They are just trying to influence a fast-moving news agenda and they are moving faster than they can or should”. At a news conference with US President George W. Bush last week, British Premier Tony Blair said two dead British soldiers shown on Arab TV network Al-Jazeera had been “executed” by Iraq. The British Government later backed away from the accusation after a relative of one of the soldiers told a British newspaper that she had been told the soldier had died in action. In what would have been a key breakthrough last week, various media separately cited military sources as saying a mass uprising was taking place in Basra. Iraq dismissed the reports as “hallucinations” while Arab television channels showed images of quiet Basra streets. Mr Blair later said there had only been a ... “limited uprising”. “There’s a compelling need to be relentlessly upbeat and optimistic,” said Mr Jamie Cowling, research fellow at the Institute of Public Policy Research in London. “One of the big things they are looking for is the smoking gun, the evidence for example of chemical or biological weapons, or mass torture that will prove them right”. In one example, media reported the discovery of a chemical weapons factory — reports that were later officially dismissed. Analysts say Britain and the USA have not plotted a clear enough message in their propaganda war, partly because of the speed with which the campaign was put together. At the same time, they are under increasing pressure to get their case across to both their own people and Iraqis. “This is a deeply political war. This is not an attempt to invade Iraq as a country, but to chase out its regime. It’s important to get their political message across,” said Mr Clarke. Other claims that initially appeared to provide Britain and America with propaganda ammunition include the repeated fall of the Iraqi port city of Umm Qasr. American officials claimed an Iraqi commander had surrendered, but he turned up on the Al-Jazeera television. Reuters
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8,700 bombs, missiles launched at Iraq: Pentagon
Washington April 1 “We are seeing significant degradation of those forces” arrayed around the Iraqi capital, said Army Maj-Gen Stanley McChrystal yesterday adding that 3,000 precision-guided bombs alone had been dropped since Friday in the air and ground assault that began nearly two weeks ago. “We are seeing some movement in the Republican Guard formations as well. What we think we see them do is move to reinforce,” he told mediapersons at a Pentagon briefing. In Qatar, a US military official said there had been some fighting between US ground troops moving within 80 km south of Baghdad and the Republican Guards. “We flew about a thousand sorties over Iraq yesterday, mostly against the Medina, Hammurabi, Baghdad and al Nida divisions” of the Republican Guard, the General said in Washington. He said US warships had fired more than 700 Tomahawk land attack cruise missiles and Western jets had dropped more than 8,000 precision-guided munitions since Operation Iraqi Freedom to depose Iraq’s President Saddam Hussein began. But General McChrystal, deputy director of operations on the US military’s Joint Staff, also told a briefing that more than 100,000 American and British troops on the ground in Iraq had not yet found any chemical or biological weapons. Reuters
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Saddam decorates
brave troops Baghdad, April 1 Two medals — the Decoration of Umm al-Maarek or the Mother of All Battles, as Baghdad calls the 1991 Gulf war, and the Wisam al-Rafidain, or Order of the Two Rivers — would be awarded to the entire 45th Brigade, which defended the port city of Umm Qasr, according to a presidential decree read on air. Medals for bravery would also be awarded to fighters in Nasiriyah and in the Fao peninsula.
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IRAQ WAR DIARY Kuwait City, April 1 *** The ongoing war has kindled hopes for relatives of 625 Kuwaiti prisoners of war, including an Indian, who are languishing in Iraqi jails since the first Gulf War of 1991. Officials here are brimming with hope that whenever the coalition forces' Operation Iraqi Freedom ends successfully and their troops take control of Baghdad, the POWs' ordeal will end. Many Iraqi soldiers, who were captured by the Allies in the past few days, have confirmed during their interrogation that that the Kuwaiti POWs are in Iraqi jails. Kuwait is very sensitive over the POW issue and has raised the issue at the UN and other world fora umpteen number of times. *** The coalition forces are fearing that Iraqi troops will torch scores of Iraqi oil wells while fleeing as they had done in 1991 when they had set ablaze more than 600 Kuwaiti oil wells while leaving Kuwait. Though the apocalyptic event of the 1991 war has not come true this time, the problem has erupted again albeit on a lesser scale. At least nine Iraqi oil wells were torched by the fleeing Iraqi forces. 24 Kuwaiti petroleum engineers are working to put out these fires. They are working during the day time only for security reasons. *** The coalition forces military strategists are keeping a close tab on the activities of their personnel and supervising war operations from a building on the outskirts of Doha, Qatar. The building is linked to all elements of the three lakh-strong coalition forces. This squad is better known as Force 21, though its full name is "Battle Command, Brigade and Below". Sophisticated technology allows the commanders to monitor the real-time location of everything and every individual soldier in the battle zone. |
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Pak rejects US charge on N-proliferation
Islamabad, April 1 Pakistan preferred the USA to provide evidence to substantiate its allegation of proliferation by Islamabad, Foreign Minister Khurshid Mehmood Kasuri said. He was reacting to the sanctions imposed by Washington on Kahuta Research Laboratories (KRL) which coordinated Pakistani nuclear and missile programme. He said Pakistan’s nuclear programme was of defensive nature and was developed to “prevent India from committing aggression.” Dismissing reports that Pakistan faced pressure from the USA to roll back its nuclear programme, he said: “There is no American pressure. We would not accept any pressure from any source when it comes to meeting our defence needs. Our nuclear programme is purely for defence and we are not indulged in any kind of such proliferation.” His comments came as the US embassy in Islamabad issued a statement here notifying the sanctions against KRL. The decision to impose the sanctions, described as “non-proliferation penalties”, was taken on March 24, an embassy spokeswoman said. PTI
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Landslide buries 400 homes; 700 missing La Paz, April 1 Many injured were being taken to hospital in the nearby town of Tipuani, but it was impossible to give an initial estimate. The town’s mayor, Arnuflo Robles, said he had received reports that 400 homes had been destroyed. About 40 rescuers were on their way from La Paz to Chima, a road trip that can take as much as 15 hours. Telephones were cut and residents used radio to communicate with the capital.
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In video: Kurdish Peshmerga fighters enter the villages formerly controlled by Islamist fighters after they were shelled by the coalition forces. (
