Some nine month ago I came up with a scheme how to Make Your Own "Militant linked to Zarqawi arrested" newsbrief and include some twenty examples of the real ones that did ran on the wire services.
Now the obvious is confirmed. Zarqawi was, at least to large part, a propaganda effort of the U.S. military.
The Zarqawi campaign is discussed in several of the internal military documents. "Villainize Zarqawi/leverage xenophobia response," one U.S. military briefing from 2004 stated. It listed three methods: "Media operations," "Special Ops (626)" (a reference to Task Force 626, an elite U.S. military unit assigned primarily to hunt in Iraq for senior officials in Hussein’s government) and "PSYOP," the U.S. military term for propaganda work.
One internal briefing, produced by the U.S. military headquarters in Iraq, said that Kimmitt had concluded that, "The Zarqawi PSYOP program is the most successful information campaign to date."
The military asserts that the operation was targeted on Iraqis. But what success was gained by using Zarqawi. How did leverage xenophobia response help the effort in Iraq? I fail to find any positive effect for the Iraqi but also for the U.S. occupation.
But then, maybe that was not the idea at all. See how Bush did use the operation:
Q The Vice President, who I see standing over there, said yesterday that Saddam Hussein has long-established ties to al Qaeda. As you know, this is disputed within the U.S. intelligence community. Mr. President, would you add any qualifiers to that flat statement? And what do you think is the best evidence of it?
PRESIDENT BUSH: Zarqawi. Zarqawi is the best evidence of connection to al Qaeda affiliates and al Qaeda. He’s the person who’s still killing. He’s the person — and remember the email exchange between al Qaeda leadership and he, himself, about how to disrupt the progress toward freedom?
This was during a press conference on June 15, 2004. Bush was using the content of a military PSYOPS operation to justify the ongoing war as part of his reelection campaign. There it was successful. (Could someone ask the White House if/how Rove was involved in this?)
But as Billmon wrote in reference to the ‘Make Your Own’ post:
Looking at the episodes mentioned by Bernhard, I’d say the Pentagon is in some danger of overdoing it. There appear to be enough "top Al Qaeda aides" in Iraq to fill Shea Stadium. Zarqawi’s inner circle alone would probably take up the entire upper deck. This is not only bad news, but bad storytelling. Shit, the way things are going, I wouldn’t be too surprised if some day soon Centcom announces it’s captured the Joker and the Riddler, and is hard on the trail of the Penguin. Is it any wonder the ratings are down?
[…]
Call it a lack of imagination or just a poor grasp of screenwriting fundamentals, but I get the distinct impression the writers (and the producer and the director) of this show don’t have the slightest idea how to end it.
Nine month on we see that Billmon was right. The only idea they have come with to end the crisis is to expand it into Iran. Not really a promising solution.
I doubt that leverage xenophobia response at the domestic front and in Iraq achieved anything but -maybe- the Bush reelection. Bad enough you might say, but other than that?
Bush’s domestic poll ratings, especially on Iraq, are the lowest ever. The Iraqis stopped believing in a positive occupation intent a long time ago – the few that ever did so. The military in Iraq, in self-deception, concentrated on raids looking for foreign terrorists while behind there back the local guerilla could build the infrastructure for the coming remake of the Tet offensive.
There will be more negative effects to this PSYOPS operation. Now that the scheme is in the open – and such operations always tend to become public knowledge at one time -, the administrations and the military tenability is deeply hurt.
Whatever General Kimmitt may claim in future press conferences will be doubted. Whenever Bush will talk of terrorists people will think terrorists->Zarqawi->PSYOPS.
The "Leaker in Chief" already stuck, now "Liar in Chief" might be added.
I believe Kimmitt’s judgement of the ‘most successful information campaign’ will turn out premature and wrong. The operation has further lowered the standing of Bush and of the military. Blowback time one might say.