IO: Marines Battle Rumor Mill in Iraq
4 October Associated Press - Marines Battle Rumor Mill in Iraq by Anthony Castaneda.
Quote:
Word spread quickly: A Marine search dog had escaped and was roaming the streets attacking children. But the Marines didn't have any dogs in Haditha at the time.
Nevertheless, Marines found themselves having to quash yet another of the baseless rumors that often sweep this city of about 50,000 people, most of them Sunni Arabs wary of U.S. intentions in Iraq.
Rumors _ most of them maligning U.S. troops _ are a staple of life in the embattled, isolated cities of Anbar province, a region that is a center of the Sunni Arab-led insurgency and where telephones don't work and newspapers rarely appear.
Many residents are afraid to visit other parts of the country such as Baghdad, 140 miles to the southeast, for fear they'll run afoul of Shiite death squads. In their isolation, most people rely on Arab television networks such as Al-Jazeera for news of the outside world. For local news, the main medium is word of mouth.
No one is sure how the dog rumor started but soon terrified people were complaining to tribal leaders about a violent animal on the loose. The director of the city hospital even told reporters that seven children had been bitten.
The Americans must be to blame, many people concluded...
Also check out Rumors in Iraq: A Guide to Winning Hearts and Minds by Captain Stephanie Kelley, USAF, in the SWJ Library.
Quote:
This thesis proposes the study of rumor as a guide to the battle for hearts and minds in Iraq. It reviews existing rumor theory to identify how rumors function and what we can learn from them. Rumors often serve as a window into a community, and can provide valuable information for developing a campaign to assess, monitor, and gain the support necessary to defeat insurgents. This thesis employs two distinct typologies to analyze over ten months of rumors in Baghdad, Iraq. The motivation typology provides indications of Iraqi sentiment, and suggests unrelieved anxiety and fear is likely contributing to widespread hostility towards the US-led Coalition. Indications of unrealistic expectations are also evident, potentially contributing to hostility levels as they go unrealized. The subject typology identifies overarching concerns of the Iraqi people, and suggests there are specific fears inhibiting cooperation with US counterinsurgency efforts. This thesis then examines rumor remedies. Because they rely on effective communication skills, American and Arab cultural communication styles are contrasted and integrated into tailored remedies for Iraq. The findings in this thesis could assist Coalition information campaigns by alerting them to existing Iraqi perceptions so they can tailor messages to address significant concerns and fears...
It's all so easy, but resources remain the issue
When I last served in Iraq in '04-'05, my TF did not have attached PSYOP assets, and we had a large swath of Western Al Anbar to deal with. The only time we received a TPT to employ was during Fallujah 2.0.
This problem was compounded by the fact that our entire IO plan was driven by the Fire Support Coordinator (and he did a fine job with what he had), who's background in IO consisted of several seminars held at Camp Pendleton.
I hear you guys, but for whatever reason, TPTs are limited in quantity like CAG, HETs, mineclearing teams, and linguists/translators. We were fortunate to get the TPT for a named operation, although we clearly knew we had a need for it.
Truth be told though, there were inconsistencies between the PSYOP elements of our IO campaign plan (which we felt was in psynch with HHQ), and advise given by the TPT lead. When you're prosecuting kinetic and non-kinetic operations on 2-3 hours of sleep a day, and your TPT lead is advising you (as the IO officer) to try a particular approach, it's tough to see the forest. I chalk that up to the simple dynamic that fatigue drives well-intentioned people to minimize the number of decision points they have to face. The result is that we sometimes defaulted to a certain approach simply because it was familiar and worked before. In truth, we realized during AARs that had the TPT been integrated sooner, the lead Soldier wouldn't have been required to propose approaches that seemed "pretty far out there". He would have had more time to change our behaviors during planning :D and work from a number of COAs that had already been kicked around.
This is a long reply, but I just wanted to throw out some of the things that I saw cause friction.
