Plentitude of platitude

The pages of Baghdad Now, an Arabic-language newspaper, portray a country on the upswing. Iraqi soldiers and policemen are proud, capable civil servants who take weapons off the streets and determinedly pursue criminals.

Iraqis of all sectarian backgrounds work in unison. The Iraqi government delivers.

The paper's editorials hail democracy. Fashion pages chronicle the latest fads in Beirut and Kuwait.

There is little news of the more than 130,000 American troops who remain in the country.

That the paper has no publicly known editor, no bylines and no advertisements is no mistake. It is part of America's huge psychological warfare campaign to influence Iraqis' behaviour and attitudes.

“The millions spent on this is wasted money,'' said Ziad Al Aajeely, the director of Iraq's non-profit Journalistic Freedom Observatory. “Nobody reads this.''

In a country where few things work well, where security forces have a chequered reputation and sectarian tension remains high, many Iraqis have become dismissive of the propaganda they know or assume comes from the United States government.

American officials declined to be interviewed about the evolution and perceived effectiveness of psychological warfare initiatives in Iraq.

Richard C. Holbrooke, US President Barack Obama's special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, recently told lawmakers that the administration is working on a strategic communications plan for that region that draws on the lessons of Iraq.

“The strategic communications plan — including electronic media, telecom and radio — will include options on how best to counter the propaganda that is key to the insurgency's terror campaign,'' Holbrooke told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee recently.

Piled-up hot air

Baghdad Now is not labelled as a American military publication, although the military acknowledges it is produced by an army psychological operations unit and distributed for free by soldiers.

Piles of it are left at entrances to the Green Zone for passers-by to pick up.

A US Army officer in Baghdad said on the condition of anonymity that Iraqi soldiers at his outpost mock the publication and are more interested in the editorially independent US Department of Defence newspaper, Stars and Stripes, and in the magazines soldiers get in the mail.

“They say it's childish,'' the officer said. “Baghdad Now makes a good fuel source at the Iraqi checkpoints.''

During the early years of the war, most US psyops campaigns were closely linked with specific military objectives, such as asking people to cooperate when soldiers searched their homes.

In recent years, the campaigns have become more sophisticated and have taken on broader themes that are in line with the US objective of leaving behind a stable, democratic Iraq.

Pentagon officials say the campaigns allow them to push back against insurgent groups that have made the media a key battleground.

Sunni and Shiite insurgent groups in Iraq regularly post videos that feature denunciations of the American troops and their presence in Iraq.

Propaganda produced by a group called the Future Iraq Assembly has become omnipresent.

The group's slick website says it is “an independent, non-governmental organisation, comprised of a number of scholars, businesspersons and activists who ... [believe] in freedom and progress for all the Iraqi people. It is simply the ‘watchful eye' over Iraqi interests.''

It lists no member or contact information other than a generic e-mail address.

An e-mailed request for an interview did not draw a response and the military declined to comment on its affiliation with the group.

Far from reality

“Most people think it is American propaganda,'' said Wamid Nadmi, a political science professor at the Baghdad University.

He said the messages of hope and political reconciliation are well-intentioned but disconnected from Iraq's reality.

“There is no talk of the atrocities committed by the local police or the people who have spent years in prison'' without being formally charged, Nadmi said.

Assad Abu Khalil, a political science professor at the California State University who writes the Angry Arab blog, said the campaigns are ridiculed in the Arab world.

“They have crude content and the narrator sounds like Saddam's own propagandist,'' he said.

“One is struck by the extent to which the advertisements show Iraqis as Westernised and secularised.''

One television campaign titled We stay, produced in 2004, showed a long line of US military vehicles and helicopters fading into the horizon.

A small group of Iraqi children watches the contingent disappear. For a few seconds, they appear wary. Then they smile and start kicking a football.

An advertisement launched this year featured Iraqis from different regions listing the things that united them.

The billboard component had a split image of the faces of a man and a woman, under the words: “Despite our differences, Iraq unites us.''

Of a couple of dozen Iraqis interviewed about the advertisements, the majority said they find them ineffective.

“All Iraqis know these organisations are supported'' by the US government “with the aim of normalising the occupation'', said Abdul Kareem Ahmad, a lawyer in the Salahuddin province.

“... If those funds had been given to the poor and the widows, Iraq would have become a pioneer in social welfare. Millions of dollars go into the pockets of war profiteers who believe victory in Iraq can be won through the media using underground films.''

Noor Sabah, an engineer in Fallujah, said her friends and relatives ridicule the advertisements.

“These commercials are boring and annoying,'' she said. “Everyone knows they are American — not Iraqi-made.''