Posted on 03/06/2003 1:34:29 PM PST by Indy Pendance
WASHINGTON (AP) -- At 10 million leaflets and counting, the United States is stepping up its message to Iraqi troops: don't mine waterways or dump oil into them, don't use weapons of mass destruction, do desert your station so you'll live to see your children grow up.
Allied planes on Thursday dropped 660,000 leaflets, with a half-dozen different messages, over 11 sites in southern Iraq. It was the latest paper downpour aimed at softening the battlefield for possible war against President Saddam Hussein's government.
"Saddam has poisoned your waterways before," said a message delivered for the first time Thursday. "You must not aid him in doing so again."
It referred to January 1991, in the first Persian Gulf War, when Iraqi forces opened valves at Gulf oil terminals and spilled more than 6 million barrels, about 20 times more than was released in the Exxon Valdez accident in Alaska in 1989.
A month later, while in full retreat from allied forces that evicted Iraq from Kuwait, the Iraqis blew up 732 Kuwaiti wells, setting 650 of them aflame.
"Do not use weapons of mass destruction," said another leaflet dropped for the first time Thursday. It threatened "swift and severe retribution" and said "unit commanders will be held accountable."
There were messages to appeal to foot soldiers as well.
"Do not risk your life ... leave now and go home," said a message delivered first last week and again Thursday. "Watch your children learn, grow and prosper."
Defense officials said they have several more new messages not yet delivered and that the drops likely would continue should President Bush order military action.
In the weeks leading up to the 1991 war, U.S. psychological warfare operations were directed at persuading Iraqi soldiers inside Kuwait to give up without a fight. To an extent, the tactic succeeded: Iraqis surrendered by the thousands, often at the first sight of the U.S.-led ground invasion force.
This time the objectives of the U.S. leafletting, radio broadcasting, e-mails and phone calls to Iraqi forces are more varied. They include attempts to undermine loyalty to Saddam, dissuade the military from carrying out certain orders and convince Iraqis that deposing Saddam would improve their lives.
The leafletting part of the propaganda war is possible because the American-British coalition has free reign over the sky in Iraq north of the 33rd parallel and south of the 36th, where patrols have monitored no-fly zones for more than a decade.
The coalition says they are to protect the Kurdish minority in the north and Shiites in the south. Saddam says they violate Iraq's sovereignty and he has ordered his forces to try to shoot down the planes. Coalition forces regularly bomb in the zones to destroy Iraq air defenses.
The leaflet campaign began in early October with the first direct message to Iraqi troops to stop firing on U.S. and British planes. The number of leaflets delivered has increased every month. New messages have been added to warn against repairing air defenses that have been bombed and to tell civilians to stay away from military installations.
Others give frequencies at which Iraqis can tune into anti-Saddam radio broadcasts transmitted by a specially outfitted Air Force plane.
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