Iraq: one look at what went wrong
It's going to be fascinating to read the military's post mortems on how the civil-military planning for Iraq was so badly screwed up and executed. Mark Lynch over at Abu Aardvark has brought to my attention one early attempt — a paper by U.S. Army Maj. Joseph L. Cox at the Command and General Staff College entitled "Information Operations in Operations ...
It's going to be fascinating to read the military's post mortems on how the civil-military planning for Iraq was so badly screwed up and executed. Mark Lynch over at Abu Aardvark has brought to my attention one early attempt -- a paper by U.S. Army Maj. Joseph L. Cox at the Command and General Staff College entitled "Information Operations in Operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom -- What Went Wrong?" It's a micro analysis of one very specific aspect of the operations, but it's worth a read. Here's a sampling of a couple of his more interesting revelations:
It's going to be fascinating to read the military's post mortems on how the civil-military planning for Iraq was so badly screwed up and executed. Mark Lynch over at Abu Aardvark has brought to my attention one early attempt — a paper by U.S. Army Maj. Joseph L. Cox at the Command and General Staff College entitled "Information Operations in Operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom — What Went Wrong?" It's a micro analysis of one very specific aspect of the operations, but it's worth a read. Here's a sampling of a couple of his more interesting revelations:
Because Saddam used the radio and TV broadcasts to command his troops in the field and to continue to spread propaganda, USCENTCOM directed attacks on the radio and TV transmitters. The side effect of the attacks was the destruction of the only nationwide radio and TV networks. Because none of the assets in the JPOTF's equipment inventory was capable of reaching the entire country, there was no way to broadcast instructions to the Iraqi people, especially to those who resided outside of Baghdad. It would take almost a year before there was a satellite broadcast from Baghdad to the rest of the countryand it would take almost two years to rebuild the terrestrial radio and television networks.
Given the large number of public relations firms, it was surprising that the Department of Defense selected the Lincoln Group, an organization with NO public relations experience to spearhead an effort to publicize the good news events occuring in Iraq.
One bit the Iraq operation that Cox says the DoD got right was the media embed program, which he praises at being effective at helping manipulate media coverage in the early stages of the invasion:
Overall, the system worked well and reporting from the field generally presented coalition operations in a favorable light….
It's an interesting look inside the DOD's PSYOPs, and you can read Mark Lynch's take, which is more informed than mine, here.
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