Saddam winning propaganda war
2003-03-27 18:41
Baghdad / Caito - The Iraqi leadership has been able to use the first week of the war to mobilise Arab public opinion in favour of Baghdad.
This is more important for the remainder of the war and the "image" of the Americans than whether the coalition forces reach Baghdad in two days or two weeks, Arab analysts say.
A number of factors have worked to the advantage of the government of President Saddam Hussein.
The unexpected strong resistance put up by Iraqis in the south dispelled the notion that they would welcome their "liberators" in the streets of Basra with open arms.
"How do they expect to march into Baghdad if takes them a whole week to bring a part of Umm Qasr and Faw under their control?" asked Information Minister Mohammed Said al-Sahaf.
Officials have so far been able to play down the losses suffered by Iraqi troops and the significance of damage to the government's military installations.
Television pictures of peasants and women allegedly bringing down helicopters with rifles or stopping the advances of coalition forces with an old-fashioned bazooka have helped create a vision of heroic civilians defending their country against massive invading army.
Such images, which remind Arabs of Palestinian struggle against Israeli occupation, have generated renewed solidarity between Iraqis and their Arab brothers, and the government in Baghdad knows that.
It gives people from Amman and Casablanca a feeling of pride, observers say. They can say: "Look - the Americans can't treat the Arabs like a flock of sheep."
The horrific pictures of civilian casualties in Basra and Baghdad have shocked and enraged people throughout the Arab world.
As long as images of scarred and wounded children fill television screens, it becomes less likely that even opponents of Saddam's regime will welcome the coalition as "liberators".
Occupation force
According to Arab analysts, the US and Britain made a decisive mistake on the propaganda front in the early days of the war when a US soldier was filmed hoisting the American flag on the Iraqi-Kuwaiti border.
Although the flag was later taken down, the image went around the world and was seen to confirm the views of those who had warned the Americans were nothing more than an occupation force.
Even the British decision to call Basra "a legitimate military target," was not the most tactful of moves, wrote the Cairo newspaper Al Ahram on Thursday.
These factors are now posing a problem for those Arab leaders who adopted a more low-key approach in opposing the war than Syrian President Bashar Assad.
The were led to believe that the Americans would have the situation under control relatively quickly, and now feel they were mislead.
"The Americans said it would be brief, but I fear that it will last longer and lead to the deaths of many people," said Egyptian President Hosny Mubarak.
But the Americans are also being paid back for 1991 when they encouraged Iraqi Kurds and Shiites to rise up against Saddam Hussein, only to withdraw their support and leave them to the fate of the Iraqi military.
Mistrust remains strong
Mistrust remains strong today. This was evident on Wednesday when the Kuwaiti Red Crescent distributed humanitarian supplies in the small town of Safwan on the Iraqi side of the border with Kuwait.
As Arab television cameras filmed the scene, a group of Iraqis started singing songs in praise of Saddam Hussein.
"Members of the (ruling) Baath Party are still in the town. You have to be careful what you say," one resident told a newspaper reporter. - Sapa-DPA
- SAPA