Effectiveness
456. The coalition message seems to have had limited
effect on world opinion. Favourable views of the US fell dramatically
from the start of 2003 to March 2003. (According to the Pew Centre
the figures fell from 63% to 31% in France; 70% to 36% in Italy;
61% to 28% in Russia; 30% to 12% in Turkey; and 75% to 48% in
the UK.)
457. Co-ordination of the information campaign between
the combat phase and post-conflict phase was weak, as is admitted
in Lessons for the Future:
While co-ordination of the information campaign
activity across Government and the agencies was extremely good
at the working level during the campaign phase, this declined
during the early part of the post-conflict phase. This led to
a dilution of its effectiveness and coherence, despite the importance
of the contribution it can make to maintaining the consent of
the Iraqi people.[671]
This is an important issue since information operations
must be directed to the achievement of strategic objectives (see
paragraphs 445-6 above). Air Vice Marshal Heath told us:
… we were unable to counter the high level
of cynicism and hostility that we were meeting in open forum,
predominantly in the media. We had no eloquent answer to most
of that. We believed that unless we could have a demonstrator
that confirmed our line, we felt it was better to say nothing
rather than to say, 'They are wrong; we are right.' That largely
undermined our position in a number of areas.[672]
458. Measuring the effectiveness of Information Operations
is a significant challenge: 'the whole concept of measures of
effectiveness is taxing us and we are trying to come up with a
methodology.'[673]
Information Operations refers to 'Measures of Effectiveness'
which will have been included in the Information Operations plan
and which must be constantly monitored. However, influencing a
target audience is not an exact science. The DIS contracted a
private company to carry out an analysis of the effectiveness
of information operations in Kosovo. First Reflections
noted that it was difficult to measure the effectiveness of the
information campaign, but added that:
the largely quiescent reaction of the bulk of
the Iraqi population and the disappearance or surrender of the
most of the Iraqi armed forces may indicate its positive effects…[674]
However, Lessons for the Future makes no such
claims.
459. Air Vice Marshal Heath explained to the Committee
how difficult assessing success was:
If you cannot measure it and you cannot demonstrate
that you are delivering capability, you cannot demonstrate that
you are enhancing capability. You cannot demonstrate ultimately
that if you get it right you will avoid conflict.
I had one individual who was a reservist. This was
his full time job in terms of trying to analyse where we might
see demonstrators of capability. He trawled every resource he
could: newspapers, the media, the internet, reports coming out
from prisoners of war, reports from people on the streets. We
are pulling together as much as we can in terms of that human
assessment. In terms of further assessment the PJHQ, towards the
end of the campaign, came back with an embryonic matrix of trying
to do a scientific analysis of where you think there are indicators
and what level of effect they were demonstrating.[675]
460. Having said that, there were areas that appeared
to have shown some success. Air Vice Marshal Heath claimed:
prisoners of war who were interviewed were persuaded
by leaflets not to open valves in the oilfields: we saw battalions
that took up defensive surrender positions that came directly
out of the psyops messages; we had people in Basra who, when they
were asked to go out into the streets and riot against the Baath
Party, said, 'No, the reason we are staying indoors is because
you have been telling us on the radio for the last month to keep
out of the way and we will be out of harm's way and we will be
safe'. …In some small way I see those as measures of effectiveness.[676]
461. The Secretary of State told the Committee that
a range of efforts had been made to demonstrate to the Iraqi people
that it was the regime that was being targeted, not them.[677]
He had had reports that the clear and precise targeting of the
regime and buildings was noticed by people inside Iraq. He added:
warnings were given that use of weapons of mass
destruction by senior Iraqi military would be regarded as a war
crime, and the fact that they were pursuing higher orders would
not be an acceptable explanation, so a very clear and stern warning
was given to the Iraqi military about that.[678]
Nonetheless, speaking in May 2003, he accepted that
the effectiveness of the information campaign was hard to assess—'I
cannot properly answer the impact of information operations without
consulting my Iraqi counterpart, and since I have no idea where
he is…'[679] He
believed that the fact that Iraqis did not use chemical or other
unconventional weapons was due more to the rapidity of the coalition
advance and its effect on Iraqi command and control capability
than to information operations—'I place much greater weight
in terms of rapidity of effect of the operations…'[680]
462. One specific success for information operations
was suggested by Rear Admiral Snelson who told us that the information
operation conducted by him and the American Maritime Commander
successfully deterred attacks on coalition shipping by publicly
stating that they were prepared to deal with such attacks.[681]
Other examples that might be identified include that the regime
did not use non-conventional weapons against the coalition, the
absence of any widespread destruction of the Iraqi oil industry
infrastructure. Both had been targets of leaflet drops by the
coalition.
463. On the other hand, Saddam Hussein himself commented
on the futility of the coalition leaflet campaign in a speech
on 27 January to senior army officers. Iraqi state television
broadcast excerpts of the meeting. Saddam stated, 'The enemies
think that people are eager to read their leaflets...' and 'Your
brothers among the people and the armed forces stage what resembles
a ceremony after collecting and burning these leaflets...' There
is an argument that when a nation publicly attacks psychological
operations it is a sign that the propaganda is effective.[682]
464. But Air Vice Marshal Heath was prepared to acknowledge
areas of weakness:
I suppose that the weakest area of our performance
was our ability to counter either the negative press or the negative
messages that in fact were coming out of Baghdad. There was no
doubt that Saddam Hussein is a seasoned practitioner of Information
Operations.[683]
Indeed, in this respect, as in Kosovo, the coalition
came 'second', which is a worrying conclusion for future operations:
actually we came second most of the time. Okay,
we managed to make the Minister of Information a comedy or a parody
character but in the very first stages he was quite coherent and
issuing messages that were doing us harm, and the weakness in
our performance which we are now addressing is we were not very
good at responding in a timely fashion to the criticism being
issued around the world.
The BBC were at pains to tell me that they were not
an instrument of government and they were independent, and therefore
no matter how much we would like a story to be carried, a riposte
to be carried into the public domain, if they were not interested
because that was not the sexy story this year, week or day, then
you would find it nigh impossible to counter some of the messages
being used against you. It is an area of weakness, and it is a
critically important area that we have to address in the coming
months.[684]
465. Nonetheless, overall he believed that the information
campaign had had an effect:
I have no doubt whatsoever that we did have an
effect…Had we gone on during the persuasion stage for another
year, would we have avoided conflict? I do not know…It is
the most difficult aspect of the whole information piece. You
need to find a way of delivering messages of effectiveness…[DTIO]
has the best minds trying to address this very issue because we
see it as essential. There is no doubt that we delivered an element
of persuasion, an element of dissuasion and an element that affected
war fighting in terms of regiments or battalions giving up and
making sure that we did not attack them. There is no doubt that
we are having an influence in the reconstitution of Iraq today,
but I am not capable of quantifying that in terms of is it very
good; is it high or is it low. [685]
In conclusion, we believe that the British information
operations campaign did not begin early enough. We are concerned
that the lessons of the Kosovo campaign were not better learned
in this important area. It is disappointing that the coalition
is widely perceived to have 'come second' in perception management.
However we recognise that 'coming second' may be inevitable if
a conflict of choice is being pursued by liberal democracies with
a free media. We are, however, persuaded that information operations
are an activity which can be expected to become of increasing
importance in future operations. There were a number of successes
which provide evidence of the potential effectiveness of information
operations. We recommend that the Government should consider significantly
enhancing our capabilities in this area.
651 
