U.S. trying to win minds of Iraqis
USA Today
On the first full day of war in the Persian Gulf, the United States was gaining ground in its overall strategy: to win the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people while hunting down Saddam Hussein and separating him from the military units that are the backbone of his regime.
Associated Press
Absent — at least in the early stages of the war — was the devastating "shock and awe" air attack that was supposed to blast the Iraqis into submission.
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said communications continue with the Iraqi military and that they should consider whether they want to "die fighting for a doomed regime."
In its place was a plan that appeared carefully calibrated to minimize destruction and casualties, give Iraqi soldiers as long as possible to surrender and either kill or overthrow the Iraqi dictatorship. The shock-and-awe option, though, was still very much in play.
Late yesterday, U.S. intelligence sources said some Iraqi military leaders — including senior members of the Republican Guard units that have been most loyal to Saddam — were negotiating with U.S. officials over a surrender that could involve ousting Saddam.
So far, about two dozen frontline Iraqi soldiers have surrendered.
While the opening strike on a compound where U.S. intelligence placed Saddam wasn't part of the official war plan, it fit into the overall U.S. strategy.
"This illustrates the two ways you generally fight wars," said Bob Scales, a retired Army general and former commandant of the Army War College. "The old way, you would fight through an enemy. In the new way, you fight around an enemy and go for the brain. This is a large-scale psychological takedown."
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said yesterday that U.S. commanders believe that Iraq's senior leaders remain at large and declared that other strikes aimed at them were coming.
"That was the first," Rumsfeld said of the attack against Saddam. "It will likely not be the last. The days of the Saddam Hussein regime are numbered."
Rumsfeld said a military campaign involving land, sea and air forces was about to begin. A senior Defense official said later that additional Tomahawk missile strikes aimed at suspected Iraqi leadership sites were launched early today in Baghdad.
Defense officials said the latest attacks were in keeping with the early plan to try to topple Saddam while avoiding full-scale conflict.
"This is not a war against a people," Rumsfeld said. "It is a war against a regime."
For months, the United States has been waging an information campaign designed to erode support for the Iraqi leader and frame the war as the deliverance of an oppressed people.
The Pentagon has bombarded Iraqi civilians and military officers with leaflets, e-mails and radio broadcasts touting the upcoming attack as a war of liberation, and asking many of them to help.
Rumsfeld repeated that theme yesterday, imploring Iraqi leaders, military officers and civilians to embrace the inevitable fall of Saddam's regime.
Instead of bombs dropped on their heads, most Iraqis have — for the first hours of war — been strafed with detailed instructions on how not to perish defending Saddam.
"The Iraqi soldiers and officers must ask themselves whether they want to die fighting for a doomed regime or do they want to survive, help the Iraqi people in their liberation and play a role in a new, free Iraq," Rumsfeld said.
Andy Bacevich, a retired Army officer and military analyst at Boston University, said the defense secretary's appearance "seemed directed at Iraqi commanders and soldiers" more than at an American audience.
"It was extraordinary," he said. "Whether it will have an effect, it's too soon to tell."
Rumsfeld and other defense officials suggested that the United States is winning the information war and that significant numbers of leaders and rank-and-file military are weighing whether to take up arms when allied ground forces begin marching on Baghdad.
While the relatively limited U.S. bombing attack has been careful not to wantonly destroy Iraq's infrastructure, the Pentagon's psychological warfare involves convincing Iraqi officers to take the same care.
During yesterday's briefing, Rumsfeld labeled those who would destroy oil wells and dams in Iraq as war criminals.
In the hours ahead, Saddam's homes and palace compounds, Baath Party headquarters and the headquarters for his security forces are expected to be leveled.
A key part of the U.S. plan to sway Iraqi opinion, a senior Defense official said, is to do much of the heavy bombing in daylight. The hope, the official said, is that the people of Iraq will see the dismantling of Saddam's regime and choose not to resist.
Scales, the former Army War College commandant, said the strategy seems well suited to a dictatorial regime such as Iraq's.
"If you take out the leader of a liberal democracy, the democracy continues," Scales said. "That isn't true with a dictatorship. Iraq is like Panama on steroids."
