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http://www.nikkei.co.jp/news/kaigai/20031215AT3K1504015122003.html
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米政府、拘束発表を数カ月かけ入念に準備・米紙報道
【ニューヨーク15日共同】米紙ニューヨーク・タイムズは15日、イラクのフセイン元大統領拘束の発表について、偽の情報だと疑われないよう米政府が数カ月にわたって準備した広報戦略に従って行われたと報じた。米国務省やイラクの連合軍暫定当局者らが明らかにしたという。
戦略は、発表に当たってイラク人に役割を与え、できるだけ速やかに元大統領の映像を世界中に放送するよう規定。発表までに情報操作した印象を与えず、イラク国民やアラブ諸国民の信用を得る政治効果を狙った。広報戦略はブッシュ大統領も承認済みだった。
教訓となったのは、米軍部隊による今年7月の元大統領の息子2人の殺害。この時は写真が公表された後も多くのイラク国民が本物かどうか疑ったため、米軍当局は記者団に遺体の実物を見せ、遺体のビデオ映像も公開せざるを得なかった。元大統領拘束の情報は、まずイラク統治評議会のタラバニ前議長が漏らし始め、その3時間後、連合軍暫定当局のブレマー行政官が統治評議会メンバーらとともに記者会見して発表、テレビ映像も公開した。 (21:00)
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http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/15/international/middleeast/15VIDE.html?hp
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December 15, 2003
A Careful U.S. Plan to Dispel All Doubt on Hussein's Fate
By JIM RUTENBERG
he announcement of Saddam Hussein's capture followed a careful plan devised over months and intended, according to those who worked on it, to dispel any doubt among Iraqis and a skeptical Arab world that he was in American hands.
Code-named HVT No. 1 ― for High-Value Target No. 1 ― the public relations playbook that the Pentagon followed was written back in the summer, in response to the widespread disbelief that greeted the announcement that American soldiers had killed Mr. Hussein's sons, Uday and Qusay, in July.
According to officials at the State Department and the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq, the plan, which President Bush approved, stipulated that Iraqis were to have a role in announcing the news and that the images of the quarry were to be broadcast worldwide as quickly as possible, to leave little time for conspiracy theories to course through Iraqi towns and villages.
Crucially, the American military, Iraq's administrators and officials in Washington were able to keep the news of Mr. Hussein's capture on Saturday secret for 18 hours.
As with Uday and Qusay Hussein, news that the two men might have been killed seeped out before their identities could be confirmed. When photographs were released later, many Iraqis said they were not convinced that the bodies were those of Mr. Hussein's sons. Military planners had to go so far so as to put their bodies on display for journalists to see for themselves and release morbid videos of their reconstructed bodies for use on television.
That series of events, American officials say, taught American communications strategists some hard lessons about the Arab and Iraqi media. Iraqis and indeed most Arabs have gotten their news for decades from less-than-candid government-controlled news outlets, and are deeply skeptical of all official claims, with or without confirmation from independent outlets.
Just as important, the officials say, the events taught the Americans that Arab audiences considered video to be the most credible form of news reportage, particularly since the arrival of the 24-hour Arab news networks Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya.
"I think it's fair to say that we didn't expect the degree of skepticism that we found after Uday and Qusay were killed," said Gary Thatcher, an author of the media strategy and the director of strategic communications for the Coalition Provision Authority, which is led by L. Paul Bremer III.
"That it had to be verified by this rather macabre ritual of marching people through the tents and looking at the bodies, that was something we wanted to avoid this time," Mr. Thatcher said.
Appointed to his position in August, Mr. Thatcher, a former journalist, said he and other planners ― who included Charles Heatley, a British Provisional Authority spokesman, and officers with Special Forces and intelligence backgrounds ― set about drafting two plans to proclaim perhaps the most important news since the war in Iraq began.
One was to be used if Mr. Hussein was captured alive; another was to be used if he was found dead.
The task, Mr. Thatcher said, was to speed the process by which imagery of Mr. Hussein, dead or alive, could be made public. A process was devised so top military commanders in Iraq and the United States could receive and clear the imagery as quickly as possible.
If Mr. Hussein had been found dead, Mr. Thatcher said, officials had developed a faster identification system that eliminated the need for DNA samples to be sent away for confirmation.
"Baghdad is a place that feeds on rumors," he said. "Our goal was to quickly affirm the truth of the situation, and that meant being able to quickly prove it."
A decision was made early on that the capture of Mr. Hussein would need an Iraqi face, he said, a stipulation that Mr. Bush felt strongly about, the White House spokesman, Scott McClellan, said Sunday at a briefing.
"Iraqis were going to be making the announcement no matter what," Mr. Thatcher said. "This was overall an Iraqi victory. It was obviously going to mean a great deal to the Iraqis."
News of Mr. Hussein's capture was initially held to a tiny cadre of top government and coalition officials.
According to the plan that Iraqis be part of the news break, Jalal Talabani, a former president of the Iraqi Governing Council and a leader of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, first began to tell reporters in Iraq and Iran after 4 a.m. Eastern time that Mr. Hussein had been captured. He did not share many details.
A more detailed account of Mr. Hussein's capture was provided at a news briefing held in Iraq just after 7 a.m. Eastern time by Mr. Bremer and officials of the Iraqi Governing Council. The shared podium and the pictures of Iraqi journalists among those cheering Mr. Bremer's announcement that "We got him" also put an Iraqi stamp on that event, where the first military pictures and video of Mr. Hussein's capture were shown.
"Obviously, you have to choose carefully," Mr. Thatcher said. "You don't want an image that in any way allows him to be built up as a martyr or allows him to appear heroic."
The images shown, of a disheveled Mr. Hussein being examined by coalition medical personnel, was better than any officials had hoped for, he said.
"The image of him undergoing a physical examination for lice in the hair and having his tongue pushed down with a tongue-depresser is about as routine as it gets, which showed basically that he was an ordinary mortal, was not superhuman, that he was no longer a threat," he said.
"Our planning was good," he said. "But Saddam helped it immeasurably in the long run. He contributed in ways we never dreamed possible ― he allowed himself to get into such a disheveled state and to look so haggard."
Another consideration was whether the image of Mr. Hussein as a prisoner could be shared with the news media in accordance with international law. Mr. Thatcher said he believed that the provisional authority was free to show the captured Mr. Hussein, by law, until he is formally charged, much as the police parade suspects before the news cameras when they trot them into police stations.
These images were shown instantly around the world, and perhaps more important, on the rebuilt Iraqi national television network, Al Iraqiya, which is under the supervision of the American-led administration. It is thought to reach 93 percent of Iraqi urban households, compared with 33 percent with satellite dishes to receive Al Jazeera.
Some American news executives expressed some discomfort at having to run the images provided by American officialdom. But Paul Slavin, senior vice president of ABC News, said the images were so arresting and significant that the source of the footage ultimately became irrelevant.
"I think it's transcendent," he said. "Whether they were released by the government or shot by us, the impact would be the same."
"Seeing Saddam in a disheveled, disoriented state ― in a potentially or seemingly humiliating state ― was a startling image, even to people as jaded as in the media," Mr. Slavin said. "He did not get to live the life of a martyr. He did not go down shooting. He was found in a hole in the ground."
The breaking news was of such magnitude that both Time and Newsweek decided to redo issues that were already being printed.
When the phone rang at 5 a.m. on Sunday, Jim Kelly, managing editor of Time, thought that it was more bad news, following the bad wounds suffered last week by a correspondent, Michael Weisskopf, and a veteran war photographer, James Nachtwey, in Baghdad. Instead, it was news of the capture.
Reporting for this article was contributed by Jacques Steinberg and David Carr in New York and Thom Shanker in Washington.
Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company
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