What went wrong?
US officials at the Pentagon are having a hard time explaining why the war against Iraq has not been a piece of cake so far, Khaled Dawoud reports from Washington
At his most recent news conference on Tuesday, US Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld seemed on the brink of losing his temper as one reporter after another questioned whether the war against Iraq had been sufficiently planned. Others asked 74-year-old Rumsfeld whether the military leadership at the Pentagon had approved his war plans, and if he thought that he had underestimated the strength of the Iraqi army.
Rumsfeld, a key hard-liner in President George W Bush's administration, repeatedly denied that anything had gone wrong, and reminded his audience that it has only been five days since the war started. He also warned of "dangerous days" to come, referring to the anticipated battle over the Iraqi capital, Baghdad.
"I never said it was going to take days," Rumsfeld said on Tuesday, although shortly before the war started last week, he had said he expected the war to last for "six days, six weeks, but not six months".
Rumsfeld's show of confidence failed to allay the American public's growing suspicion that they were being dragged into a difficult and protracted war. US officials blame tactics used by Iraqi army militias in the south for losses inflicted on the US and British troops. They claim the paramilitary group loyal to Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, known as Fedayeen Saddam (Saddam's Fighters), literally held guns to the heads of Iraqi civilians to prevent them from rebelling against the regime, and at Iraqi army soldiers to force them to fight. They also accused the Iraqi army of violating the rules of engagement, by having soldiers posing as civilians claim to surrender, but then when invading troops drew near they opened fire.
These claims seemed unconvincing to the majority of the US public. In the latest opinion poll by The New York Times and CBS television that was published yesterday, the percentage of Americans who said they expected a quick war against Iraq dropped to 43 per cent on Monday night from 62 per cent on Saturday. The number of those who said the war was going "very well" also dropped by 12 per cent to 32 per cent from Sunday night to Monday night.
Such declines came as each day brought more bad news, despite repeated claims by US officials in the first two days of the campaign that major victories were taking place and that everything was going according to plan. Pentagon spokesmen then claimed that the towns of Umm Qasr and Nassiriya had fallen and that it was only a matter of hours before the key city of Basra would be in their hands. Pictures of Iraqi civilians surrendering to the US army were repeatedly displayed on television screens, together with a few Iraqi civilians, mostly children, shaking hands with the invading US and British troops and chanting anti-Saddam slogans.
However, the propaganda campaign collapsed quickly, as Americans recognised they were being lied to. Almost one week into the fighting, the British army, which was given the task of controlling south Iraq, was barely managing to maintain control of the port of Umm Qasr, Iraq's only exit to the sea. However, they were unsuccessful in entering the small town and they failed to suppress the tough resistance they are facing around Nassiriya and Basra.
The turning point, however, came on Sunday, when Iraqi television and Arab satellite channels carried gruesome pictures of nearly 10 US soldiers shot dead, together with five soldiers -- four men and one woman -- who were taken prisoner.
Since the war started, major television networks in the United States -- CNN, Fox, CBS, ABC and NBC -- have seemed to act as government mouthpieces, little different from state-controlled Iraqi TV. There was no mention of tough resistance among Iraqis, and presenters spoke of Iraqis as the "enemy" while hailing the bravery of "our men at the front". Reports on anti-war protests by thousands of Americans in nearly all major cities were also suppressed in favour of highlighting small pro-war demonstrations attended by a few hundred persons -- most of them relatives of soldiers at the front. The US media also played up reports of possible injuries or deaths to Iraqi leaders in the aerial strike that launched the war. And whenever Hussein delivered a speech or was seen attending meetings with his ministers, TV networks quoted US officials as saying that footage might have been pre-recorded.
Meanwhile, Bush's popularity skyrocketed, reaching 67 to 70 per cent, as the media rallied the nation behind the president and his war.
Upon orders from the Pentagon, the major television networks broadcast for hours reports about the capture of US soldiers without actually showing any of the interviews in which the five soldiers seemed terrified. Such interviews would have dealt a blow to the public's morale and discredited claims by the Pentagon that everything was going according to plan.
As the US began to suffer setbacks, President Bush was forced to cut short his weekend at Camp David and returned to the White House in Washington DC. He seemed undeterred, saying the only outcome the US would accept was victory and the fall of the Iraqi regime. Rumsfeld made similar statements on Tuesday, insisting the "Iraqi regime was finished and its days were numbered." He reiterated his appeal to Iraqi soldiers and officers to surrender, advising them to think of their future.
With the United States undeterred by any international appeals to stop the war, military experts here expect that considerable blood will be shed in the coming days. On Wednesday, US jets bombed Iraqi television headquarters, forcing it to go off the air. In another incident, some guided missiles strayed off-target to hit a market, killing at least 12 civilians.
White House Spokesman Ari Fleischer ruled out US acceptance of peace proposals by Saudi Arabia and the Arab League, categorically rejecting any proposals that fell short of removing Saddam from power.
Military experts predict the US will slow its march to Baghdad, not only due to the sand storm that hit the Iraqi desert on Monday, but also to buy time to deal with stiff Iraqi resistance in the south, and to deploy thousands more troops along supply lines.
Senior officers were also admitting in private that they had underestimated the strength of the Iraqi army and blamed Rumsfeld for rushing into war without enough soldiers on the ground. Rumsfeld and his advisers had miscalculated that the "Shock and Awe" aerial bombing campaign would lead to a quick collapse of the Iraqi army.
This week, the US government not only faces an angry public worldwide, but also a sceptical audience at home. Whether these factors will push the media to be more responsible remains to be seen.
Al-Ahram Weekly Online : 27 March - 2 April 2003 (Issue No. 631)
Located at: http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2003/631/sc2.htm