A strategic failure: American information control policy in occupied Iraq

Military Review, March-April, 2008 by Cora Sol Goldstein

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THE AMERICAN OCCUPATION of Germany (1945-1949) stands as a model exercise in democratization by force. In fact, top figures in the Bush administration, including Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and former secretary of defense Donald Rumsfeld, have compared the American experiences in postwar Germany and postwar Iraq. This article examines American information control policy in Germany and Iraq (2003-2006). Comparative analysis indicates that the American information control policy was very different in the two cases. In Germany, the U.S. Army and the office of military Government U.S. (OMGUS) exerted rigorous control over the media to block Nazi propaganda and introduce the American political agenda of democratization. (1) With the emergence of the cold war, OMGUS used all the avenues of mass communication and cultural affairs--newspapers, journals, feature and documentary films, posters, and radio-to disseminate U.S. strategic propaganda and messages to the German people. Consequently, from 1945 to 1949 the Americans were able to shape the content of information in the American zone and sector. In Iraq, coalition forces failed to exert a similar degree of information control. As a result of this strategic error, the insurgency and other civilian movements opposed to the American presence have been able to control information and spread anti-American messages.

The German Case

During WWII, psychological warfare played an important role in America's military strategy against the Third Reich. As soon as the U.S. Army entered Germany, American psychological warfare experts disseminated propaganda to convince the German people of the finality of defeat and to persuade them to cooperate. At the same time, the Army shut down German newspapers, journals, and radio stations in the American zone and sector, to ensure a monopoly over information and propaganda. As a result, the information Germans received in the U.S. areas came exclusively from American information fliers (Mitteilungblatter), Army newspapers, and radio Luxembourg.

After V-E Day, on 12 May 1945, the psychological Warfare Division of the Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force (PWD/SHAEF) became the Information Control Division (ICD) in Germany. The head of PWD/SHAEF, General Robert C. McClure, commanded the new outfit and kept most of the PWD/ SHAEF personnel. (2) Initially, ICD was independent from the military government, but in February 1946 it became fully incorporated into OMGUS.

At first, ICD was primarily concerned with denazifying the media. ICD banned German journalists who were considered politically tainted by their Nazi past, and prohibited Nazi, militaristic, and nationalistic messages that could inflame pro-Nazi sympathies and encourage resistance to the American project. While this vetting process was taking place, ICD began to select and license German editors to run newspapers and journals. It succeeded in selecting a politically and ideologically heterogeneous group of individuals. By mid-1946, ICD had given press licenses to 73 Germans, including 29 Social Democrats, 17 Christian Democrats, and 5 communists. (3) thus, while OMGUS imposed rigid political and ideological censorship to ban the diffusion of Nazi, nationalist, and militaristic messages, it also sought political diversity and allowed the development of a variegated political discourse. (4)

Although ICD's licensed German editors were committed to creating a new, democratic Germany, the division kept close watch over their publications. Initially, it exerted pre-publication censorship, but in August 1945 it switched to post-publication scrutiny. (5) Although the German editors were free to run their operations, there was always the possibility of post-production reprimands that could lead to the revocation of licenses. Thus, ICD defined and policed the boundaries of the acceptable and the desirable in the political and cultural fields, and monitored and regulated the information that reached Germans in the American zone and sector.

During the first two years of occupation, American press policy in occupied Germany reflected the ideological profile of the ICD press officers. Many of ICD's officers were scholars who had lived in Germany. A significant portion were new Dealers, intellectuals, emigres, Jews, and leftists enthusiastic about the possibility of helping to build a democratic, pluralist society from the ashes of Nazism. (6) In Berlin, the majority of ICD officers were German emigres. (7) Thus, many ICD officers spoke German, knew about German culture, and understood German society and history. In 1945, these press officers welcomed the collaboration of the German left with enthusiasm, as part of the process of creating a democratic German press and culture.

With the cold war, OMGUS press policy changed. Occupied Germany became the first battlefront of psychological warfare between the U.S. and the USSR. After 1946, the possibility of an independent and united postwar Germany rapidly vanished. Both the Americans and the Soviets began to use the new German media in their respective zones and sectors to attack each other and spread propaganda. For example, in March 1946 OMGUS forced Neue Zeitung, the flagship newspaper in the American zone, to change its editorial stance to reflect agreement with U.S. foreign policy. Neue Zeitung became a mouthpiece for OMGUS to counteract Soviet propaganda in occupied Germany. (8)