U.S. Forces Bomb Iraqi TV Off Air
March 25, 2003 -- The U.S. military may have successfully knocked out Iraqi television early Wednesday morning after several days of attempts, a senior military official told ABCNEWS.
Before the bomb was dropped in another early morning raid on Baghdad, one U.S. military official said the Iraqis had switched to a satellite system. "We can take it out," he said, but U.S. forces were trying to do so without "taking out" the satellite that other countries may be relying on as well.
It was unclear if the United States was successful at limiting the strike to Iraqi television or if the blast will keep Iraqi broadcasting off the air. Some reports from London indicate intermittent video is still being broadcast from Iraq.
Reports from Iraq said that the signal from Iraqi television was disrupted temporarily several times Tuesday. The military official said that was evidence of what he called "a concerted effort" to shut the broadcasts down.
Television is one of the biggest propaganda tools Saddam Hussein has as he completely controls the airwaves. He's offered these views of the war to Iraqis:
A downed American helicopter
Dead and captured Americans
Resistance to coalition troops from Iraqi citizens
Injured Iraqi civilians
And Saddam has offered his own calls for mass uprising against the Americans.
"The enemy has violated your lands and now they are violating your tribes and families," Saddam said in a televised statement Tuesday. "If you cause them any damage, no matter how small, they will flee. Don't wait for our orders. Just fight them. Every one of you is a military leader. Fight them in small groups, hit their frontlines and their rear units so the whole advance will stop. And when it stops, attack them. If they deploy, leave them alone, don't fight them, but if they rest somewhere, attack."
Sarah Sewall, program director of the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy, said such images have power. "There is an argument to be made that unless you cut off Saddam's ability to portray an image of being in control, you have given him a huge military advantage," she said. The Carr Center is part of the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.
Iraqi Broadcasts Can Help
In the first Gulf War, Iraq's main telecommunications building was destroyed on the second day of the 1991 war. But there are reasons to leave Iraqi TV on the air. Propaganda can be helpful in many ways for allied forces. U.S. officials can:
Can see a downed helicopter or other equipment the Iraqis boast of capturing
Can see that the POW's are alive and perhaps gain information about their whereabouts
Can verify that in fact Saddam is alive, as well as keeping his senior leadership
However, the senior military official told ABCNEWS that the advantage that Saddam's regime is getting from the Iraqi broadcasts far outweighs the advantage of leaving the signal up.
Other Concerns
There are serious complications for any attempt to disable the broadcasts. The main Iraqi TV transmitter has been moved to the Ministry of Information in Baghdad — right in the middle of populated areas.
"The secretary said he was concerned that the communications targets were commingled in civilian areas and he implied [they] had dual use; i.e., they were used to communicate to the Iraqi public but also for military purposes," said Air Force Maj. Gen. Victor Renuart during today's daily military briefing at the coalition's desert press center in Qatar.
"So I think those factors, coupled with intense scrutiny of this conflict, give them a lot of hesitation about causing civilian casualties with the goal of eliminating what could be construed to be a propaganda outlet," Renuart said.