Victims of propaganda
Given the post-war mood in Iraq, one might question the effects of the coalition's psychological operations that we heard so much about leading up to and during the war. Military psychologists now admit they made some miscalculations. So exactly how were these operations designed and how did they go wrong?
A psychological operation is similar to an advertising campaign, experts admit. The goal is to make the message personal, persuasive and permanent. As far as possible, the communication has to be what people want to hear. So it is crucial to know your customer. In the case of Iraq, the coalition seems to have seriously misinterpreted the particular target customer. Coalition forces have had to admit that they misjudged how the Iraqi people would react to an invasion.
What is of particular interest about this failure is that American military psychologists seem to have ascribed too much significance to cultural differences. This contrasts with previous military misadventures in which, in retrospect, cultural differences were not taken sufficiently into account. It is true that an outsider, if he or she takes the trouble, is in a good position to notice the particular characteristics of another group's collective psyche. But it is one thing to pick up on contrasts in attitudes and quite another to use this information to predict future behaviour.
Based on a 'target analysis', the coalition decided to persuade Iraqis through propaganda that fighting for Saddam Hussein was against the interests of their family. The Americans thought the family-versus-regime argument would work well because they saw Iraq as a developing, collectivist society (relative to the United States), in which family would normally take precedence over any national loyalties. How wrong that was.
Subsequent events have demonstrated that Iraq is quite unlike the less cohesive Afghani society, for example, in which people are more oriented towards their family and region than their nation. In fact, the Iraqis reacted in much the way one would expect the Americans or the British to react if their country was invaded: they stuck together. This is precisely how Americans reacted after September 11.
This rule of behaviour is straight out of Group Dynamics 101, which shows how groups can work effectively. But, given the culture and harsh regime in Iraq, the Americans figured it would not apply. In fact, the coalition seemed to have practised some self-inflicted psychological operations, convincing themselves that the Iraqi people could not fail to want to be saved (or 'liberated'). Meanwhile, Iraqis clearly baulked at the idea of accepting the invasion on the simplistic terms set by their invaders.
In a recent article in the American Psychological Association magazine Monitor on Psychology, psychologist Lieutenant-Colonel Scott Rodgers, the director of the information operations programme at the Joint Military Intelligence College, describes how psychological operations were aimed at vulnerabilities in Iraq. His comments, to a non-specialist like myself, suggest that these operations are crude and, well, condescending. It would surprise me that any self-respecting soldier or citizen would take them at face value.
One example Colonel Rodgers outlines is the 'if-then' scenario included in the coalition leaflet campaign. One picture showed a coalition plane destroying an Iraqi tank, captioned in Arabic: 'Take an offensive position and you will be destroyed', while another, with an undamaged tank read: 'Do not take an offensive posture, and you will not be destroyed.' One can only hope that the captions lose something in translation. But even assuming they are more compelling in Arabic, or are convincing 'military-speak', they did not appear to have an overwhelming effect.
The coalition seems to have paid insufficient attention to the power of Mr Hussein himself and the severe conditions through which he was present in the lives of his fellow Iraqi people - for better or worse. It would be surprising if such a bond could be broken by the propaganda of invading foreigners who were, through sanctions, perceived as the cause of much of that suffering.
It is difficult to assess the success of psychological operations because of war conditions, and because changes in attitude can have long-term effects and may not influence short-term behaviour. However, as reluctant as military psychologists are to admit to failures, they are quick to claim success. They maintain that 87,000 Iraqis surrendered during the Gulf war and attributed their surrender to coalition messages urging them to give up.
It is a pretty impressive success rate - that is, if it is not just propaganda. Jean Nicol is a Hong Kong-based psychologist and writer
