U.S. Tries E-Mail to Charm Iraqis

wired news ^ | 2/13/03 | By Michelle Delio

[freepatriot32]

A campaign to reach out and touch the Iraqi people through e-mail apparently hasn't been as successful as the United States had hoped, because the Iraqi government censors all e-mail coming into the country.

Over the past month, the U.S. military has periodically sent e-mail to Iraqi military and government officials urging them to protect their families by helping U.N. inspectors and turning away from Saddam Hussein.

U.S. government officials won't comment on the campaign, but according to sources in Iraq and Iraqis living in the United States, each time the e-mails are sent, Internet access all over Iraq soon suffers a "service outage." Service resumes after the U.S. military missives have been purged from inboxes.

[freepatriot32]

Another brilliant program from the einstiens of the goverment. I wonder how many millions of tax dollars they pissed away on this useless program that my 10 year old niece could have told them ahead of time wouldnt have worked.

[Numbers Guy]

I wonder how many millions of tax dollars they pissed away on this useless program that my 10 year old niece could have told them ahead of time wouldnt have worked.

If mass e-mails cost millions of dollars to send, then you wouldn't be getting any spam in your e-mailbox . . .

[Sally II]

Well, shows how far my tech knowledge goes. I didn't know that it was so easy for a country to censor email that is received. If the US government is doing email outreach, then they must also be trying chat rooms.

[Semper Paratus]

E-Mail, like "Beautiful young blonde sluts want to meet You".

[The Turbanator]

Trust me if our Government set up the e-mail program it cost 10s of millions.

[Rodney King]

Somehow I doubt it cost millions. I would bet it cost one guy like 2 hours of his time.

[freepatriot32]

i didnt mean the email it self i meant the cost of the 9 or 10 levels of pentagon and military intelligence this had to go through over the last year or two before it was tryed much like the bradly troop transport that went through 25 years of study and redesign to the point that it was about as effective as this email campiagn

[The Turbanator]

egg zakly

[GovernmentShrinker]

There may be quite a few people in the target audience who are reading the messages before the phony outages start, and noting the suspicious timing of the outages. And some of those people may talk to others who didn't get a chance to read the messages.

[eyespysomething]

Word-of-mouth spreads rapidly.

[Mr. K]

Or "Increase your P*nis size.."

I would not mind if these were spam, but to get them from your old girlfriends... sheesh...

[Bryan24]

Guys, you don't have enough faith in our Pentagon planners.

Do you not remember the printer that was sent to Iraq with a malicious virus in it? US Intelligence intercepted a printer for a computer system going into Iraq. We added a virus into it that was supposed to transfer itself from teh printer into the Air-Defense computers. Supposedly, when the Radars "pulled up" a contact on January 17 (begining of air war), the virus would "eat" all of the information on the screen and leave it blank.

I'm still getting "klez" viruses 6 months after it's first appearance.

You think those emails might have contained some viruses? Duh!

[RippleFire]

BUMP

[Ranger]

We're sending over the wrong kind of spam to win hearts and minds.