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It has been suggested that this article be merged into Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. (Discuss)

The Zarqawi PSYOP program refers to a US Psychological operations program, or propaganda campaign exaggerating the importance of Al Zarqawi in Al Qaeda and the Iraq insurgency.

The program was allegedly primarily aimed at, but not limited to, the "Iraqi and Arab media" along with the "U.S. Home Audience," which was part of a "broader propaganda campaign."

One of the presented goals was to alienate local citizens from him by portraying him as a foreigner and key actor in the insurgency. However, Sidney Blumenthal reported that, according to a "military source," this campaign ultimately revolved around "domestic political reasons."

Terrorism expert Loretta Napoleoni stated that the US created a myth and then these fabrications became a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Program

On October 4, 2004, The Telegraph reported that, according to a US military intelligence agent, the US was paying $10,000 to individuals in order to pass for fact the fiction and supposition regarding Zarqawi.

The Washington Post reported on April 10, 2006, that the role of Zarqawi was magnified by the Pentagon in a psychological operations campaign started in 2004. In the words of the Washington Post:

For the past two years, U.S. military leaders have been using Iraqi media and other outlets in Baghdad to publicize Zarqawi's role in the insurgency. The documents explicitly list the "U.S. Home Audience" as one of the targets of a broader propaganda campaign.

The article goes on to explain that a slide created for a briefing by Army Gen. George W. Casey Jr,

describes the "home audience" as one of six major targets of the American side of the war.

Nevertheless, the slide did not specifically assert the program targeted U.S. citizens. Although other parts of the briefing did suggest it was directed at the U.S. media to alter the view of the war.

Another slide in the briefing noted a "selective leak" to reporter Dexter Filkins, about a letter boasting of suicide attacks in Iraq and allegedly written by Zarqawi. He used that information for an article in the New York Times. Contacted by the Post Filkins commented he was skeptical at the time, and still is, about the document's authenticity.

According to Sidney Blumenthal, in an article for Salon, a military source told him that, for ultimately "domestic political reasons," Donald Rumsfeld and the White House resisted degrading the dramatically inflated image of Zarqawi.

Responding to the in the Post reported psychological operations aimed at Americans, Army Col. James A. Treadwell, commander of the U.S. military psyops unit in Iraq, but no longer present as the program was started, said that the US doesn't do that. Another officer commented in the Post that, although all material provided was in Arabic, the campaign probably influenced the view of the American press raising his profile. The Post continues that, according to an officer familiar with the case, this program was not related to another program which was linked to the Lincoln Group.

By focusing on his terrorist activities and status as a foreigner the US tried to inflame Iraqi citizens against him. Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, the senior commander in charge, remarked, according to the Washington Post:

"The Zarqawi PSYOP program is the most successful information campaign to date."

Regarding the influence of this program on Al Qaeda Jennifer Schultz reports the comments by terrorism expert Loretta Napoleoni:

The myth of al-Zarqawi, Napoleoni believes, helped usher in al-Qaida's "transformation from a small elitist vanguard to a mass movement."

ref name="Napoleoni"/>

Rise to power

According to articles in Counterpunch, Newsweek, and Asia Times Online several incidents turned Abu Musab al-Zarqawi from an unknown and unimportant terrorist into the well-known voice of Al Qaeda in Iraq. The Asia Times contends that in February 2003 he was practically unknown outside Jordan.Zarqawi - Bush's man for all seasons By Pepe Escobar, Asia Times Online, October 15, 2005</ref> Both Newsweek and the Asia Times continue by commenting that initially he was largely unconnected to Saddam Hussein, and not part of bin Laden's group. Eric Margolis, terrorism expert, concurs that he never was part of al Qaeda. Following the allegation he was a link between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda (used as casus belli), by Colin Powell before the UN Security Council in 2003, he became the embodiment of resistance against the US in the Muslim world. Then the invasion of Iraq by the Bush administration became another boost for his popularity, which Michael Hirsch in Newsweek describes as:

the Iraq invasion gave Zarqawi a chance to blossom on his own as a jihadi.

After the capture of Saddam Hussein the Bush administration accused him of being behind the continuing mishaps in Iraq, or, as Patrick Cockburn commented in an editorial for Counterpunch Newsletter:

"No sooner had Saddam Hussein been captured than the US spokesmen began to mention al-Zarqawi's name in every sentence."

Articles in the Washington Post, Rolling Stone, Newsweek, Counterpunch Newsletter and Columbia Journalism Review suggest his increased notoriety, as illustrated above, was the result of an orchestrated effort involving psychological operations.

Jane Arraf, CNN’s former Baghdad bureau chief, observed that their are discrepancies between what journalist encounter in Iraq “and a lot of the comments we see coming out of the administration and the Pentagon.” Commenting on this Daniel Schulman for Columbia Journalism Review said:

... it has become, in part, a contest over the framing of reality, and thus a hall of mirrors for the press.

In the wake of his assasination, which had erroneously been reported several times before, the U.S. military produced a video showing him to be the opposite of what the media previously advocated him to be.

Effect of US PSYOP on domestic audiences

The Smith-Mundt Act, adopted in 1948, explicitly forbids information and psychological operations aimed at the US public. Nevertheless, the current easy access to news and information from around the globe, makes it difficult to guarantee PSYOP programs do not reach the US public. Or, in the words of Army Col. James A. Treadwell, who commanded the U.S. military psyops unit in Iraq in 2003, in the Washington Post:

There's always going to be a certain amount of bleed-over with the global information environment.

Agence France Presse reported on U.S. propaganda campaigns that:

The Pentagon acknowledged in a newly declassified document that the US public is increasingly exposed to propaganda disseminated overseas in psychological operations.

US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has approved that document, which is called "Information Operations Roadmap." The document acknowledges the Smith-Mundt Act, but fails to offer any way of limiting the effect PSYOP programs have on domestic audiences.

Several incidents in 2003 were documented by Sam Gardiner, a sixty-four-year-old retired Air Force colonel, which he saw as information-warfare campaigns that were intended for "foreign populations and the American public." “Truth from These Podia,” as the treatise was called, reported that the way the Iraq war was fought resembled a political campaign, stressing the message instead of the truth. The International Crisis Group reported that Zarqawi’s group, and three other groups of in Iraq, were disseminating propaganda in a sophisticated manner.

Nevertheless, the Information Operations Roadmap does not specifically mention the Zarqawi PSYOP program, but it does show the general dilemma psychological operations pose regarding the effect they potentially have on the US home audience.

Quotes

The Washington post cites Col. Derek Harvey who said at a meeting by the Army in Fort Leavenworth:

"Our own focus on Zarqawi has enlarged his caricature, if you will - made him more important than he really is, in some ways."

See also

• Abu Musab al-Zarqawi
• Doublespeak
• Information Operations Roadmap
• Iraq war
• Lincoln Group
• Newspeak
• Propaganda
• Psychological operations (United States)
• Psychological warfare
• PSYOP
• Smith-Mundt Act
• War on Terrorism

References

1. ^ Military Plays Up Role of Zarqawi - Jordanian Painted As Foreign Threat To Iraq's Stability By Thomas E. Ricks, The Washington Post, April 10, 2006
2. ^ "Mission Accomplished" in a business suit - Ignoring U.S. intelligence, Bush inflated Zarqawi, then made a pointless trip to Iraq to pose as a heroic dragon slayer. It doesn't work anymore by Sidney Blumenthal, Salon, June 15, 2006
3. ^ Was There a Legal Basis for His Assassination? The Story Behind Zarqawi's Death by Jennifer van Bergen, CounterPunch, June 12, 2006
4. Who was Abu Musab al Zarqawi? by Michel Chossudovsky, Global Research, June 09, 2006,
5. ^ America Put Him in the Big Time The Short, Strange Career of Abu Masab al-Zarqawi by Patrick Cockburn, Counterpunch, June 9, 2006
6. Who is behind "Al Qaeda in Iraq"? Pentagon acknowledges fabricating a "Zarqawi Legend" by Michel Chossudovsky, GlobalResearch, April 18, 2006
7. ^ Hyping Zarqawi by Tim Dickinson, Rolling Stone, April 11, 2006
8. Claim: US Created al-Zarqawi Myth By Jennifer Schultz, UPI, November 10, 2005
9. Profile of a Killer By Loretta Napoleoni, Foreign affairs
10. The Myth of Zarqawi by Loretta Napoleoni, November 11, 2005
11. How US fuelled myth of Zarqawi the mastermind By Adrian Blomfield, Telegraph, October 4, 2004
12. U.S. Says Files Seek Qaeda Aid in Iraq Conflict By DEXTER FILKINS, New York Times, February 9, 2004
13. A 2003 Pentagon directive appears to bar a military program that pays Iraqi media to print favorable stories by Mark Mazzetti, Los Angeles Times, January 27th, 2006
14. ^ The Myth of Al Qaeda Before 9/11, Osama bin Laden’s group was small and fractious. How Washington helped to build it into a global threat By Michael Hirsh, Newsweek, June 30, 2006
15. ^ Cite error: The named reference ATO was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
16. Zarqawi: From street thug to symbol of holy war by Sarah Challands, CTV.ca, June 12, 2006
17. Pentagon PSYOP: "Terror Mastermind" Abu Musab Al Zarqawi is "Incompetent" by Michel Chossudovsky, GlobalResearch, May 15, 2006
18. ^ Mind Games By Daniel Schulman, Columbia Journalism Review at Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism
19. ^ Rumsfeld's Roadmap to Propaganda - Secret Pentagon "roadmap" calls for "boundaries" between "information operations" abroad and at home but provides no actual limits as long as US doesn't "target" Americans by National Security Archive, January 26, 2006
20. ^ Operations as a core competency by Christopher J. Lamb, senior fellow in the Institute for National Security Studies at the National Defense University and has been Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense, Resources and Plans.HTML version
21. ^ US Propaganda Aimed at Foreigners Reaches US Public: Pentagon Document by Agence France Presse, January 27, 2006
22. US plans to 'fight the net' revealed By Adam Brookes, BBC, January 27, 2006
23. [http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB177/Info%20Operations%20Roadmap%20Truth%20from%20These%20Podia.pdf Truth from These Podia Summary of a Study of Strategic Influence, Perception Management, Strategic Information Warfare and Strategic Psychological Operations in Gulf II] by Sam Gardiner, Colonel, USAF (Retired),October 8, 2003,

• Psychological warfare
• Propaganda
• Counter-terrorism
• Anti-terrorism policy of the United States
• George W. Bush administration controversies
• 2003 Iraq conflict
• Iraqi insurgency