Hearts and Minds - In the Battle for Arab Public Opinion

Americans May Be Losing to Saddam

ABCNEWS' Dan Harris in Amman contributed to this report

A M M A N, Jordan, March 28 — A week into the war, Saddam Hussein — long discredited and even despised in the Arab world — is gaining the kind of support many here would never have imagined. And who's helping him? Many Arabs say it's the Americans.

The Arab media argue the Americans are being less truthful than the Iraqis. The sense here is when the Iraqis make claims — downed helicopters, captured American soldiers — reported American denials are then contradicted by visual evidence such as showing the captured soldiers on television.

The Pentagon waits for soldiers' families to be informed before publicly confirming captures, but that delay is seen in this part of the world as a stalling tactic or outright deception.

As for Americans' claims — the surrender of high-ranking Iraqi officers, the capture of cities such as Umm Qasr — Arab journalists seem to relish pointing out that these claims are often proved false.

"I believe the Americans lost the propaganda war from day one of this war, simply because they told inaccurate information," said Abdul Bari Atwan, editor of Al-Quds al-Arabi, an Arab-language newspaper in London.

So despite the fact that coalition forces — after one of the fastest advances in military history — are within 50 miles of Baghdad, … despite the fact that the allies have seized Iraq's southern oil fields, … despite the fact that they've so far prevented the Iraqis from firing off any Scud missiles at Israel … despite all of this, … Saddam may very well be surveying the battlefield tonight with satisfaction.

Resistance ‘Plays Well’ to Global Audience

"I think it's going pretty well so far, from the Iraqi perspective," said Jeremy Binnie, Middle East editor for Jane's Sentinel, a periodical that assesses security and defense.

"From what we can see on the TV screens, [the] Iraqi regime seems to be functioning still, they're still rolling out their ministers to talk in front of the cameras," added Binnie. "They're giving every impression that they are resisting the coalition invasion, which plays very well to the international audience, especially those opposed to this military action."

After eight days of fighting against the world's sole superpower, Saddam still appears to be in control of Iraq. His officials are displaying bravado during bombardments, there have been no major uprisings against his regime, and his fighters have been putting up the sort of fierce resistance that almost no one expected

The Pentagon maintains Saddam's regime is getting Iraqis to fight through threats and intimidation. One coalition spokesman said members of the paramilitary force Fedayeen Saddam have been putting guns to children's head to force their fathers to fight.

But a more troublesome theory for the coalition is that Iraqis are fighting not because of coercion, but because they've been instilled with a sense of nationalism, a sense they've decided they'd rather be ruled by Hussein than by American occupiers.

According to Gen. Abdul Hadi Majali, former chief of staff of the Jordanian army, that's exactly what's happening. "So this is the mood which is now in Iraq: that this is a force coming to occupy Iraq and we have to defend ourselves, our country, our land."

This nationalism, if that's what in fact what it is, may be fueled by graphic pictures aired daily on Iraqi TV of dead and injured iraqi civilians.

On Thursday, the Iraqis broadcast what they said were public funerals in the northern city of Mosul. And Health Minister Umeed Midhat Mubarak claims 350 civilians have died in the war."Most of these martyrs and victims are children, women and elderly people who cannot afford to protect themselves," he said.

It sounds crass and cynical, but dead civilians may suit Saddam's purposes.

"The regime believes that American public opinion can't sustain large numbers of casualties," notes Toby Dodge, ABCNEWS military analyst. "They frequently mention Vietnam. They frequently mention Mogadishu [Somalia]. And they want to play to American public opinion, and convince them that it's time to bring the troops home, before Saddam Hussein is removed."

Credibility Question Resonates

Meanwhile, the question of American credibility still resonates. The Arab media have been bashing the Americans for claiming that Iraq violated the Geneva Conventions by showing American POWs on TV.

They say the United States has double standards, pointing out the Americans allow reporters to take pictures of Iraqis surrendering. And that the Americans are holding detainees at Gunatanamo Bay in Cuba for undefined periods of time in what some call a "legal black hole."

"The U.S. really has a track record of abusing POWs and it's not convincing for anybody for the U.S. to cry wolf now," says Nabil el-Shari, editor of the Jordanian newspaper Ad-Dustour.

But a senior Bush administration official, who condemned the Arab network al Jazeera for showing the pictures of dead coalition soldiers, took pains on Thursday to point out the United States was fighting the war with public perception in mind.

"We made certain choices about how we fight this war to try and affect civilian life as little as possible. I think that is a message that needs to be gotten out," said the official. "It stands in quite contrast, by the way, with Iraqis taking civilians and shoving them in front of forces, or dressing their soldiers in civilian clothes, or pretending to surrender and then executing the people to whom they're 'surrendering.' "

When pressed about the reaction to the carnage in the "Arab street," the official said, "I'm quite confident that the leaders of those countries are capable of explaining what is going on here, because we have a lot of support in that part of the world."

For Arab World, Is Saddam the Lesser of Two Evils?

Whether the United States is right or wrong on these issues may be less important than the fact there is a growing perception in the Arab world that once again America has failed to be evenhanded.

The result: Many Arabs are expressing newfound support for Saddam Hussein. He is, they say, the lesser of two evils.

Saddam, for his part, appears to be playing for time. But how much time does he really have? It's not known how many casualties his forces have taken, but they are likely significant. It's also not known how much damage to his assets the air campaign has done. That, too, is likely significant.

In the end, this war is not a public relations game. Saddam must survive against a powerful military that is presently regrouping, and whose leaders today vowed to fight as long as it takes.

But fighting it out — including forcing the coalition to take on his best, most loyal forces in the streets of Baghdad — may very well be Saddam's game plan, too.

Says Majali, the former Jordanian army chief of staff: "You see we Muslims, really … we believe when your times comes, it will come. Either in a ditch or in a plane. … So he knows if it's his time to die, it will come. … So this is what he believes. This is what he is waiting for."