[iwar] UK's Big October media offensive

From: televr <yangyun@metacrawler.com>
Date: Tue Nov 18 2003 - 19:27:43 PST

Battle the MoD lost: papers reveal failed bid to sway opinion on Iraq

David Hencke and Andy Rowell
Wednesday November 19, 2003
The Guardian

Last month Britain made the people of Iraq more secure from terrorism
than at any time since the fall of Saddam Hussein. And millions of
Iraqis are grateful for having the best public services - from schools
to clean water and power - they have had since the first Gulf war.

These were headlines that Geoff Hoon, the defence secretary, hoped
would appear in British newspapers during "Big October", the code name
for a media offensive aimed to convert the UK public to supporting the
outcome of the Iraq war.

But now, after daily reports of terrorist attacks on the Americans and
last week's killing of 17 Italian policemen, the men and women from
the Ministry of Defence are blaming "negative attitudes by news
editors" for the failure of the headlines to materialise.

The ministry's strategy - drawn up at a meeting in London on September
16 - has been revealed after the leaking of confidential papers from a
media seminar which have been seen by the Guardian.

The Iraq Troop Contributing Nations seminar - also attended by
representatives from the Czech Republic, Denmark, Italy, Lithuania,
Holland, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal and Romania - was aimed at
creating a strategy to counteract potential unrest during the holy
month of Ramadan. The documents say: "The MoD sees Ramadan as a major
potential period of instability in Iraq and a time when Iraqis will
assess the effectiveness of the coalition partners' authority.
Information operations are seen as a tool to help keep the situation
manageable."

It goes on to say that "the MoD's main target is the UK public and
media while [the main target] of the Basra headquarters for British
troops is the Iraqi people".

The two main issues to push in the British media were: "Security in
Iraq - try to push the perception that Iraq is becoming more secure"
and "utilities and reconstruction - try to demonstrate that service
and utilities are as good as if not better than before the war".

A spokesman for the MoD yesterday reeled off pages of statistics which
he said showed that things were getting better. He said one third of
people in Basra were now connected to sewage and 80% to mains water,
more electricity was being generated in Basra than before the war and
hospitals now had their own independent generators.

The spokesman said: "These are not being reported because of the
negative attitude of news editors who find front page reports about
deaths more newsworthy. Only one paper, the Economist, has taken an
interest."

However Menzies Campbell, Liberal Democrat deputy leader, said
yesterday: "A media campaign can only be successful if it is connected
to reality. The search for weapons of mass destruction has yielded
nothing and the Iraq security situation has deteriorated."
http://media.guardian.co.uk/iraqandthemedia/story/0,12823,1088257,00.html

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Received on Tue Nov 18 19:29:10 2003

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