San Jose Mercury News April 16, 2005
Army, eager to use PR in Iraq, tries it out at Fort Ord first
Special Unit Uses Soft Sell To Sway Mock `Villagers' To Cooperate With Americans Rather Than Insurgents
By Jessica Portner
Army Reserve Staff Sgt. Logan Griffith, wearing fatigues and armed with a fake rifle, passed out leaflets to Iraqi villagers with photos of exploding limbs to warn them about land mines.
Down a dirt road, a fellow soldier was telling the town's mayor through an Arabic interpreter that the insurgents -- and not the American soldiers -- were their enemy. Then a grenade exploded, gravel flew, and everyone scattered.
There were no casualties, though. The ``village'' actually was a cluster of old buildings on the decommissioned Fort Ord in Monterey County. The ``Iraqis'' were actors, some of them Iraqi immigrants, others from the military's Defense Language Institute down the road. And the 52 Reserve soldiers, who were real, were training for the interpersonal and salesmanship skills they'll need when they get to the real Iraq and mingle with real townspeople.
Elite group
The U.S. Army Reserve's 7th Psychological Operations Group based at Moffett Field is one of three in the country charged with getting jittery civilians to obey U.S. commands through persuasion rather than guns.
``They are learning how to be salespeople,'' said Lt. Col. Steve Goto, deputy commander of the Mountain View unit. ``It's the military version of Madison Avenue.''
At Fort Ord, the purple-flowered hillside with a fake town is an ideal spot to practice such fictional scenarios.
A tall, broad-shouldered Staff Sgt. Chester Byrd sidled up to the ``mayor'' of the town and shook hands. Byrd started up a conversation through an Arabic interpreter while his two buddies fanned out to guard the perimeter. The man groused about the lack of basic services such as sewers and water, and said residents were rattled about the violence that plagues the town.
``If you help us and work with us then we will be able to assist you,'' Byrd said, holding his gun downward in a non-threatening manner. ``What we need to do is find out where insurgents are hiding.''
Committed volunteers
Majed Yousif, who volunteered for the role of an angry villager through a Michigan-based contractor, said he did it for more than the $20-an-hour fee and trip to California.
``I want to help both my country, Iraq, and my new country,'' he said. ``Hopefully this will reduce the casualty rate and lead them to get used to people yelling at them.''
Military psychological operations -- or psy-ops to those who practice it -- have been used historically both to fool and demoralize the enemy, and to pacify and reassure civilians in conquered territory. In World War II, operatives fooled the Nazis about the planned site for the D-day landing, and helped establish order in demolished German and Japanese cities.
In Iraq, U.S. jets have flown over Al-Fallujah, depositing more than a million handbills urging the city's insurgents not to fight. Iraqi police officers, meanwhile, passed out leaflets featuring graphic pictures of injured Iraqi children.
Since World War II, the Army's regular active-duty psy-ops unit has been headquartered at Fort Bragg, N.C., with Reserve units stationed in Cleveland and Mountain View. In all, about 5,000 soldiers are trained in these skills.
Sgt. 1st Class Matt O'Keefe, one of the leaders of a group of soldiers training Friday who will be deployed in June, said this kind of mental exercise was essential when he was in Kuwait, Somalia and Baghdad.
``This is a different form of affecting behavior. It's like media advertising,'' said O'Keefe, 33, from Minneapolis. ``You can do so much good with all these messages and we need to be very careful when we use force.''
Learning the culture
John Pike, director of GlobalSecurity.org, said the best soldiers must steep themselves in cultural nuances. They must learn how to show proper honor and avoid being offensive.
``It's Local Culture 101 and you have to have a gift for gab,'' said Pike. ``Every culture has a particular set of rules. But many foreigners do not understand.''
Cultural ignorance can be deadly. ``Thousands of civilians have been killed because they appeared to be offensive and then the victims' relatives join the insurgency to get revenge,'' said Marcus Corbin, a senior analyst at the Center for Defense Information.
Critics, though, say the tactics have a dark side. There often is a blurred distinction between trying to destabilize an enemy force while also trying to stabilize civic functions among non-combatants.
Bill Hackwell, a Vietnam veteran who works with an anti-war coalition in San Francisco, said psy-ops were a failure in Vietnam and argued that they are failing in Iraq.
``Everything is always cloaked in a threat,'' said Hackwell. ``Unless you do this, we are going to destroy your village. How can they ever trust the U.S. after that?''
Critics point to a CNN report last year that prematurely announced an attack on Al-Fallujah. The source was a Pentagon press release, and the intent of the false report was to allow the military to gauge how guerrillas would respond to an invasion.
Still, the soldiers training in Monterey were thankful for the experience. Better to get used to the confusion here than in Iraq, where the bullets and blood are real.
Griffith's foray into the ``village'' involved sounds of Arabic prayers and a reading of the Koran blasting from loudspeakers, mobs of civilians shouting ``Give me some cash'' while others defended the soldiers and shouted ``Give them a chance.''
And in the middle of it all, a soldier playing an insurgent opened fire and had to be subdued without harming civilians.
```This was hard,'' said Griffith, ``because everyone was talking at once. And you always have to watch what you say.''
© Copyright 2005, Mercury News
