Page 222 - An Introduction to Political Communication Second Edition

INTERNATIONAL POLITICAL COMMUNICATION

only in sickening international public opinion with his implied threat
of what might happen to the hostages should his invasion of Kuwait
be resisted.
After operation Desert Storm had commenced, images of
captured allied airmen, visibly brutalised, were shown on Iraqi
television and then through Western television organisations to the
rest of the world. As Philip Taylor notes, these and other efforts to
influence international public opinion through the use of media
were ‘ill conceived and badly researched’ (1992, p.90), alienating
rather than attracting support for the Iraqi cause. ‘If Saddam had
been attempting to exploit the Vietnam Syndrome to create public
dissatisfaction with the [allied] war effort, the apparently brutalised
nature of the pilots merely caused fury and resentment’ (Ibid., p.
107). Hussein failed to understand the social semiotics of his
communicative efforts, and thus to predict how his messages would
be decoded.

Babies, incubators and black propaganda
If the allies and Iraq controlled and manipulated the media to pursue
their respective objectives, the Kuwaiti government in exile also
engaged in public relations of the type frequently used in wartime—
what is sometimes referred to as ‘black propaganda’. Saddam
Hussein’s forces in Kuwait routinely committed atrocities against
civilians, as they had done for years in Iraq itself, and some on the
Kuwaiti side believed that if serious United Nations and Western
support in the struggle to evict Iraq was to be forthcoming, these
atrocities should be highlighted and, if necessary, exaggerated or
even invented. Thus, in the period of build-up to Desert Storm,
when public opinion in the United States and elsewhere was divided,
and domestic political support for military action uncertain, a public
relations campaign got underway to portray Hussein as an enemy
of such evil that he could not be allowed to get away with his
invasion.
In the United States, where reinforcing support for the Kuwaiti
cause was most important, exiles formed Citizens for a Free
Kuwait. This body then hired the public relations firm Hill and
Knowlton, at a cost of some $11 million, to disseminate atrocity
stories connected with the Iraqi occupation of Kuwait. Special
‘information days’ were held, videos produced, and US
congressmen enlisted to lend their weight to the appeal for military
intervention. 5

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