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24 February 2003
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http://www.iht.com/articles/87692.html |
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WASHINGTON In the most ambitious effort of its kind, the American military is already at war with Iraq, but it is a conflict being fought with electrons and words in advance of any order by President George W. Bush to loose bullets and bombs. American cyber-warfare experts recently made an e-mail assault against Iraq's political, military and economic leadership, urging them to break with the regime. A second wave of messages has gone to private cell phone numbers of specially selected officials. More than eight million leaflets have been dropped over Iraq, including towns 100 kilometers south of Baghdad, warning Iraqi anti-aircraft missile operators that their bunkers will be destroyed if they track or fire at allied warplanes. A similar blunt notice has gone to Iraqi ground troops: Surrender, and live. Radio transmitters hauled aloft by Air Force Special Operations EC-130E planes are broadcasting directly to the Iraqi public in Arabic with programs that, by mimicking the styles of local radio stations, are generations advanced from the clumsy preachings of previous wartime propaganda efforts. "Do not let Saddam tarnish the reputation of soldiers any longer," said a recent broadcast. "Saddam uses the military to persecute those who don't agree with his unjust agenda. Make the decision." Military planners at the United States Central Command are using the burgeoning field of information warfare - including electronic attacks on power grids, communications systems and computer networks, as well as deception and psychological operations - to try to break the Iraqi military's will to fight and sway Iraqi public opinion. Commanders may use supersecret weapons that could flash millions of watts of electricity to cripple Iraqi computers and equipment and literally turn off the lights in Baghdad. "The goal of information warfare is to win without ever firing a shot," said James Wilkinson, spokesman for the Central Command in Tampa, Florida. "If action does begin, information warfare is used to make the conflict as short as possible." Senior military officials say, for example, that the radio shows broadcast from "Commando Solo" planes follow the format of a popular Iraqi station, "Voice of the Youth," managed by Saddam Hussein's older son, Uday. The American programs open with greetings in Arabic, followed by Euro-pop and 1980s American rock music. It is designed to appeal to younger Iraqi troops, who are perceived by officials as the most likely to lay down their arms. The broadcasts include traditional Iraqi folk music, so as not to alienate other listeners, and a news program in Arabic prepared by army psychological operations experts at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. Then comes the official message: Any war is not against the Iraqi people but is intended to disarm Saddam and end his regime. American commanders say these opening psychological salvos have in part influenced Iraqi forces to move or curtail their anti-aircraft fire. "It pays to drop the leaflets," Lieutenant General Michael Moseley, commander of allied air forces in the Gulf, said by telephone from his headquarters in Saudi Arabia. "It sends a direct message to the operator on the gun. It sends a direct message to the chain of command." Deception and psychological operations have been a part of warfare for centuries, and American commanders launched limited information attacks during the 1991 Gulf War and 1999 air campaign over Kosovo. Commanders say the current effort is much broader and more tightly integrated into the main war plan than ever before. "What we're seeing now is the weaving of electronic warfare, psyops and other information warfare through every facet of the plan from our peacetime preparations through execution," said Major General Paul Lebras, head of the Joint Information Operations Center, a secretive military agency in Texas that has dispatched a team of experts to help the Central Command info-warfare team in polishing and then carrying out its battle plan for Iraq. Just as modern combat relies increasingly on precision strikes at targets carried out from afar, the military is also increasingly aware that there are many ways to take out those targets. An adversary's anti-aircraft radar site, for example, can be destroyed by a bomb or missile launched by a warplane; it can be captured or blown up by ground forces - or the enemy soldiers running the radar can be persuaded to shut down the system and go home. "We are trying very hard to be empathetic with the Iraqi military," said a senior American information warfare official. "We understand their situation. The same for the Iraqi population. We wish them no harm. We will take great pains to make those people understand that they should stay away from military equipment." Even so, the military's most ardent advocates of information warfare concede that American pilots ordered into enemy air space would rather be told that anti-aircraft sites were struck by ordnance, rather than by leaflets. Aerial pictures help the military assess bomb damage to a target. The softer kind of strike is harder to assess. Information warfare experts look for what they call, "The voila moment." "In Afghanistan, the biggest lesson we learned in our tactical information operations - the radio and TV broadcasts - was the importance in explaining, 'Why are we here?'" said a senior American military officer. "The majority of Afghanis did not know that Sept. 11 occurred. They didn't even know of our great tragedy." During the war in Afghanistan, this
officer said, "The voila moment came when we saw that the population understood why coalition forces were fighting the Taliban and Al Qaeda." In Iraq, he said, "It will be
when we see a break with the leadership." If Bush orders an attack against Iraq, the information offensive will expand to include a fierce but invisible war of electrons. Air commanders
will rely on a small but essential fleet of specialized aircraft, including the radar-jamming EC-130H Compass Call and electronic-eavesdropping RC-135 Rivet Joint. There are just over a
dozen of each in the U.S. arsenal. In a war against Iraq, military commanders said new technology will likely allow these electronic planes to plant false targets on Iraqi radar screens and
spoof the air defense systems. In an interview, General John Jumper, the air force chief of staff, declined to discuss the highly classified technical advances, except to say, "We're
approaching the point where we can tell the SA-10 radar it is a Maytag washer and not a radar and put it in the rinse cycle instead of the firing cycle."
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