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DRAWING THE ENEMY TO BAGHDAD Saddam Hussein is seeking to pull American
and British forces into guerrilla warfare and street-to-street fighting.
By Maj. Gen. Abd al-Ameer Abaees in London.

AWAITING THE WORST Kurds are expecting the quiet of recent days to be
broken by the opening of the northern front. By Ali Sindi in Erbil, Iraqi
Kurdistan.

BROADCASTING THE DAY AFTER Radical reform of the media is essential for
Iraqi democracy. By Siyamend Othman in London.

THE GLORY BUT NOT THE GORE Embedded journalists are providing only a
sanitised version of the war. By Ghida Al-Juburi in Washington.

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DRAWING THE ENEMY TO BAGHDAD

Saddam Hussein is seeking to pull American and British forces into
guerrilla warfare and street-to-street fighting.

By Maj. Gen. Abd al-Ameer Abaees in London

Saddam Hussein has built his entire military strategy around one goal: to
stay in power. All Iraq's revenue and all its institutions, military and
civilian, are directed toward that purpose.

In this war for survival, Saddam's strategy is quite unique. Conventional
military strategy is to defend ground, but Saddam's plan is to leave the
North and the South of his country in order to defend himself in Baghdad.

By establishing the pockets of resistance we have seen in the South,
Saddam is trying to wear down American and British forces so they arrive
weakened at Baghdad.

I believe the allies will succeed in getting rid of Saddam if their
strategy is continuous bombardment of Baghdad. But it will be a
catastrophe if they try to enter Baghdad by force. The 1991 uprising
destroyed approximately 10 per cent of the infrastructure of the South.
Imagine what the destruction to Baghdad would be in 2003.

In this first phase of the war, the push across southern Iraq, American
and British forces are hoping that ordinary Iraqis will rise up against
the regime as they did in 1991 after Saddam was defeated in Kuwait. But I
am advising against this - as is Dawa, the strongest of the Shia
opposition groups.

In 1991 we rose up because we thought Saddam's regime had collapsed. The
Americans had promised they would help us, but they didn't. When Saddam
sent armoured cars to crush the people, American planes were flying above.
They watched as our people were killed.

The Iraqi people no longer trust the Americans.

In the South today, the regular army is putting up almost no resistance.
But pockets of Republican Guards are fighting - reinforced, according to
our sources, by the Fedayeen, elite commandos under the command of
Saddam's oldest son Odey.

As they advance towards Baghdad, American and British forces will
encounter other special units - most significantly, in the South and West,
a section of the Republican Guards named al-Fath al-Mubeen, or Certain
Victory, and in the East, the Mujahadeen Khalq, the Iranian dissidents who
helped put down the 1991 uprising in southern Iraq. Our information is
that the Mujahadeen Khalq have been told their duty in 2003 is to defend
Saddam on Baghdad's eastern flank, east of the Tigris, by killing anyone
who rises up there.

Iraq's defences are structured so that Ba'ath party militiamen and the
Jerusalem Army, a popular militia of more than a million men, support the
regular army in the cities. The regular army supports the elite Republic
Guards, and the Republican Guards support the Special Republican Guards
who protect Saddam around Baghdad.

British and American troops cannot enter Baghdad. It would be a crime.
Their strategy must be to bombard Baghdad continuously until Saddam is
killed or the regime collapses.

This strategy can succeed. If the Americans surround Baghdad, Iraqis may
rise against the regime. But they will not move before that: this time
they are demanding proof that America is serious, that it will not let
them down as it did 12 years ago.

There are indications, to those who know the regime well, that it was
significantly damaged by the first bombardments of Baghdad. We saw on
television that the first communiqué read out by the Defense Minister,
Sultan Ahmad Hashim, was hand-written on a scrappy piece of paper. This
means there was, in that moment at least, no infrastructure.

Once Baghdad is surrounded, Saddam may ask for negotiations. If this is
refused, I am afraid he will use weapons of mass destruction - perhaps
including chemical weapons. Saddam has always warned that anyone trying to
take Iraq from him would inherit an empty land. If weapons of mass
destruction are used, America will respond as it sees fit - and the Iraqi
people will be the victims.

If this is to be avoided, this war may boil down to two things - one
bullet and one man. This war may yet end with Saddam being killed by an
aide. No one in the armed forces, anywhere in Iraq, wants him. Not even
the Republican Guard.

Maj. Gen. Abd al-Ameer Abaees is a former staff officer in the Iraqi army
and a former Iraqi envoy to the Arab League. He led the popular uprising
in the Diwaniya area of southern Iraq in 1991.


AWAITING THE WORST

Kurds are expecting the quiet of recent days to be broken by the opening
of the northern front.

By Ali Sindi in Erbil, Iraqi Kurdistan

Today, for the first time, I heard the sound of bombardment. It was around
1 p.m. and I was in my office when I heard two big explosions accompanied
by the sound of planes flying overhead. My guess is that the explosions
were from the Mosul front, which, according to the news and the people in
the region, has been bombarded over the last two days.

Here in Erbil it is a cold and rainy day again. The situation is still
calm and in the last few days people have begun to return to their homes.
But since yesterday public concern has been growing again.

Everything is indicating that war on the northern front might start soon.
Apart from a missile attack on two military camps of two radical Islamic
groups, on the border with Iran 250 kilometers south-east of here, nothing
of significance has happened in Iraqi Kurdistan until now. (The governor
of Erbil, Fransoa Hariri, a Christian, was assassinated by one of these
groups two years ago. He was a key member of Kurdistan Democratic Party
and a Kurdish fighter for 40 years.)

The Kurdish forces are now on their highest alert, and according to word
on the street, the deadline for the start of war here is tonight or latest
tomorrow. Some think it is still a few days off because so few
preparations are obvious. The general expectation is that when the war
starts Iraq will retaliate against the Kurds. But whatever the
consequences the Kurds are committed to play a role in supporting the
US-led coalition.

Meantime, Iraqi television is still broadcasting! I hope that there is
wisdom in that. In 1991, it was shut down in the first few minutes of war.
The Arabic satellite station Al-Jazeera is playing an ugly role in this
war, broadcasting the bloodiest pictures and trying to fire up Arabs
everywhere.

I am not saying they should not cover events, but I believe that there
should some restrictions on what is broadcast. The international politics
if this are beyond belief: at the same time that Qatar is hosting the
headquarters of the American troops, Al-Jazeera, which is based in Qatar,
is motivating and encouraging the Arabs to jihad - holy war!

Iran, Turkey and Jordan have been preparing camps to receive people
displaced from different parts of Iraq and have asked for international
assistance, saying that they won't be able to handle everyone by
themselves. Turkey particularly is a hard negotiator in that field. Iran
says it has arranged camps to receive 200,000 refugees. Jordan has
mentioned similar figures.

A few weeks ago here, the Kurdish government examined the possibility of
having a rush of displaced people from the rest of Iraq. With the limited
resources available to us we took the necessary actions to receive them.
There has been some internal displacement within Iraqi Kurdistan of people
leaving towns on the frontline. But we were expecting Arabs, Kurds and
others from the centre and south of Iraq to move to Iraqi Kurdistan - a
safe haven - with the onset of war. Until now, fortunately, only small
numbers of people from these places have arrived and all have relatives or
friends on this side and have been accommodated in houses and not in
camps. So far, so good.

Ali Sindi, a graduate of Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, is a
Kurdish surgeon and former deputy minister of health in the Kurdish
government.


BROADCASTING THE DAY AFTER

Radical reform of the media is essential for Iraqi democracy.

By Siyamend Othman in London

More than three decades of Ba'athist restrictions on free speech and the
free flow of information have had devastating effects on the minds and
perceptions of Iraqis in the country. Generations of Iraqis have grown up
with a distorted world view and an extremely partial understanding of
their own history and socio-political environment. Redressing this
situation will require many years of concerted effort at all levels, from
the radical overhaul of the educational curriculum to providing free and
unhindered access to information and knowledge.

Media - print, audio-visual and electronic - will have a pivotal role to
play in this process. It could well be argued that at least in the initial
period after Saddam Hussein's removal, media will assume a principal
function in influencing the thought processes of the people in Iraq.

As military confrontation with Saddam has commenced, it is high time
seriously to consider what will be said on Iraqi radio and what images
will be shown on Iraqi television the day Baghdad is liberated and beyond.

At the outset, the US should empower Iraqi democrats by providing them
with a forum and the opportunity to address and influence their people.
This would be more credible than packaging and transmitting an American
voice with an Iraqi accent.

It is essential, therefore, that Iraqis are not only put in charge, but
are also perceived to be so. In the world of media, perception is
paramount - particularly in a region riddled with conspiracy theories, as
in the Middle East.

Concomitantly, it is critical that the future Iraqi state media does not
become the unique purview of any single political organisation, grouping
or - even- a freely elected government. It has to provide a fair,
impartial forum to all and cater for as wide a range of tastes as
possible. It has to rise above the inter-Iraqi political fray.

Currently, the over-staffed Ministry of Information, which has an intimate
association with the notorious security services, the Mukhabarat, controls
all of Iraq's media and publishing operations. Odey, Saddam's son, is the
head of the Journalists Union and has media outlets of his own.

Following the Soviet model, a substantial number of "correspondents" and
other staff of the Iraqi News Agency and state television and radio are
either Mukabarat operatives or report to it in one form or another.

This, combined with chronic bureaucratic inefficiency and professional
ineptitude, render a far-reaching restructuring of the Iraqi state's media
an urgent imperative after liberation. This should entail the wholesale
change of senior, and, perhaps to a lesser degree, middle managements as
well as all those associated with the Mukhabarat. This can be done in the
context of a comprehensive plan that needs to mature in the first few
months after liberation.

There is also a powerful case that, at some stage during Iraq's transition
to democracy, the Ministry of Information be abolished and replaced with
an independent authority to oversee the Iraqi state media and publishing
activities. A creative and imaginative adoption of a BBC or similar model
comes to mind. Freeing media from the grips of the state and establishing
it as a public service is a notion that is as foreign as the separation of
state and religion is in the Muslim world. But that is no reason to shirk
from it.

In all events, state monopoly over the media must be brought to an end
within the framework of new regulatory measures that should be introduced
in due course. It is to be expected that media outlets will proliferate
during the transitional period since every political organisation will try
to set up its own propaganda tools - as is currently the case in the
Kurdish regions outside Saddam's control. However, the vision of a
non-partisan state or public media at the service of all Iraqis,
irrespective of their creed, should be zealously maintained. Therein lies
one of the major challenges confronting us all.

Radical reform is the condition sine qua non for establishing a free and
vibrant Iraqi media unencumbered by remnants of Ba'athist ideology and
practices. Forming a new generation of journalists and other media
professionals is part and parcel of such reforms. This cannot be
accomplished overnight and may take several years. But appropriate moves
should be taken as soon as feasible. Foremost amongst these is a new
curriculum for the schools of journalism at Iraqi universities. The new
teaching should not only include modern reporting techniques and
multi-media programmes, but also compulsory courses in human rights and
civil liberties. To this end, links and exchange programmes should be
created between the schools and their American and European counterparts
and media networks.

Despite Saddam's obsession with acquiring the latest weapons technology,
Iraq is light years away from the digital age. All dictators fear modern
communications technology because it facilitates the acquisition of
knowledge and interaction with the outside world. Post-Saddam Iraq will
need to make huge investments in its telecommunications systems if it is
to catch up with the digitally driven, knowledge-based global society. The
same applies to media technology.

Like all issues relating to post-Saddam Iraq, the stakes are very high. If
the right approach is adopted, the future Iraqi media has the potential of
becoming a beacon for the media throughout the region and the Muslim world
at large. It could turn into a potent tool in the fight against religious
fascism and a powerful advocate of freedom and democracy.

Siyamend Othman, an Iraqi Kurd, is a former researcher at Amnesty
International and senior vice-president at United Press International.
This piece also appears in the Wall Street Journal.


THE GLORY BUT NOT THE GORE

Embedded journalists are providing only a sanitised version of the war.

By Ghida Al-Juburi in Washington

A group of American soldiers have been captured by Iraqi forces - but the
mainstream media in the United States has not shown footage of the event.
Providers sponsoring Internet news have censored pictures of
prisoners-of-war and casualties. The government has denounced any
screening of POWs or fatalities in print and broadcast media, stating that
this is in violation of the Geneva Conventions.

Al-Jazeera, the Qatar-based television network, was the first to report
that American soldiers had been captured south-eastern Iraq. Within
minutes, the images spread across the world. Al-Jazeera and others say
they report the news as they see it - and gore is just as much part of war
as the glory that comes with flag-waving coverage.

In the first week of the American-led war against Iraq, Americans are
witnessing the war and its repercussions take place in real time. With the
help of technology, the coverage of this war will show us more than we
have ever seen before, and faster. We are bearing witness to a new form of
the ultimate reality television. Yet American television and media
censorship have determined and demanded that we do not need to see it all.
We can see the glory, but not the gore.

Anyone who has been watching American news television in the last several
weeks has already been introduced to some of the technology that the news
networks are trying out - improved satellite phones, videophones and more.
Night vision equipment allows us to see Iraq torched by night. The
lipstick camera is so small that news reporters attach it to a pilot's
helmet to capture unforgettable moments in what will surely be the making
of modern history.

These information times are different from those of Desert Storm. In 1991,
the world got its information, to all intents and purposes, from a single
news source - CNN. Journalists were restricted in where they could go and
what they could photograph, report on and investigate. Video footage was
supplied by the military and screened by censors. The technology was more
cumbersome and less versatile than today. This time around, we have
"embedded journalists" - reporters who are based with US troops abroad.
The journalists eat drink and sleep with the troops. They become "one of
the boys."

These journalists are offered what American media sources are describing
as "unprecedented" access. The danger in such a concept is that American
reporters start to identify so closely with American soldiers that we as
American viewers will get a one-dimensional view of war and will not get
the stories that paint its full picture. Increasingly, stories from the
war zone are told from one side - the American side. You will find few
embedded journalists with the liberty to jump to the Iraqi sideline to get
a victim's perspective or photograph a family's lost home, life or loved
one.

American television shows us the macroscopic view of bombing on Iraq, but
not the microscopic one that gives numbers faces. It then comes down to
Al-Jazeera to look through another lens. And Al-Jazeera war is not the war
of CNN: Al-Jazeera war's has dead people in the streets and wailing
mothers clinging to bleeding babies. I watch in "shock and awe" as the
humanity of liberation begins to haemorrhage before my eyes. It is not
pretty, but who said war was?

Media coverage of this war is undoubtedly more critical than it was in
1991 because we are made acutely aware of the progress of war. This,
coupled with advanced technology, brings the bombing right into our
screens. But it also desensitises us as viewers. We are quickly becoming
accustomed to the lit skies over Baghdad. Embedded journalists encourage
us, perhaps even without wishing to, to identify with "our" armed forces.
They give a face to our boys at the same time as they hide Iraqi ones.

Embedding may result in our journalists testifying to nothing but the
American truth. It makes the discerning ask whether this is not, in
effect, a form of media censorship.

Free speech is a fundamental right provided for in our Constitution. The
ability to have a voice and to be able to hear and see all viewpoints is
what we understand a democracy to be. Oddly enough, Americans are
increasingly looking to Europeans and Middle Eastern journalists for an
unadulterated perspective on what the war means. It seems that they are
better able to integrate into their reporting what really makes news
interesting and independent from official statements.

Ghida al-Juburi is a corporate attorney in Washington, D.C., who has been
working with the US State Department's Future of Iraq project.

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Copyright (c) 2003 The Institute for War & Peace Reporting

IRAQI CRISIS REPORT No. 07