For the past 18 days, the world has been watching the war o­n Iraq through the eyes of the media. With more than 600 western journalists embedded with the US and British troops, the global television audience has been granted unprecedented access to the invasion of Iraq through 24-hour coverage.

Each day, we are told of the advances made by the coalition forces. The US Central Command based in Doha, Qatar, holds a daily press briefing where video recordings of successful bombing missions are shown. A US general answers a barrage of questions from the journalists.

The Iraqis have their own answer to winning the hearts and minds of the world, which watches and waits for the unvarnished truth to emerge.

US briefings

At times, the US press conferences are spiced up with accounts of the heroics of coalition troops o­n the ground and stories of humanitarian aid.

The briefings are important in that US officials divulge the decline of the enemy's strength. Tales are told about Iraqi soldiers deserting their posts or surrendering, and about the numbers killed.

To gain sympathy and support, information is released o­n unconventional methods of warfare used by Iraqi soldiers to counter the US advancement into Iraq, as well as o­n the protection accorded to the local population from their own regime.

Whatever is said or shown at the briefings, the bottom line is that the coalition forces are making sound progress in implementing regime change in Iraq.

The opposite spin

The Iraqis, too, hold daily press conferences in Baghdad, usually helmed by Information Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf.

Those attending are mainly Arab journalists, and the official spin is always the opposite of what is being said by the US Central Command, especially o­n civilian casualties and claims of gains by coalition forces.

To the neutral observer, the contradictions are completely baffling at times.

Take for instance the US Central Command's claim that its troops had taken control of most of the southern cities in Iraq and were moving rapidly to Baghdad. It showed video recordings, and embedded journalists confirmed this for their audience.

Sahhaf's response was that these were all US lies and that no part of Iraqi territory was in the hands of the "criminals", as he labels the coalition forces.

Another case in point was the US claim last Friday that it had taken control of the Saddam International Airport, o­n the outskirts of Baghdad. The same day, Sahhaf said this was not true and even challenged journalists to visit the airport with him. Everyone declined the offer.

In Hollywood style

The following day, the US Central Command said its troops had made forays into Baghdad, again to be refuted by Sahhaf. He said the video recordings of troop movements into the city shown by the Central Command as well as by western satellite channels were shot elsewhere and shown to confuse Iraqis and the world.

Sahhaf said the recordings were done in the manner of Hollywood cinemas and that the location was nowhere near Baghdad.

Uncertainty abounds o­n the status of the airport. The US Central Command said it has control and has even renamed it to Baghdad International Airport.

The Iraqis first denied that US troops were at the airport and then claimed to have retaken control of the facility.

If the US Central Command can rely o­n its embedded journalists to tell the world that they are still in control of the airport, the Iraqis have the Arab media to quote civilians and airport workers as saying otherwise.

A simultaneous war

So what is happening and what is the real status of the war?

While there is currently no accurate answer to the latter part of the question, we are clearly seeing a fierce propaganda war o­n both sides, and this is progressing simultaneously with the military war.

During World War 1, influential US senator Hiram Johnson observed that the first casualty of war is truth. During World War 2, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill said that "in wartime, truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies".

In an article , 'War, Propaganda and the Media', academician Anup Shah says conflicts are fought o­n at least two grounds - o­n the battlefield and in the minds of the people via propaganda.

"The 'good guys' and the 'bad guys' can often both be guilty of misleading their people with distortions, exaggerations, subjectivity, inaccuracy and even fabrications, in order to receive support and a sense of legitimacy," he notes.

Shah says propaganda serves to rally people behind a cause, but often "at the cost of exaggerating, misrepresenting, or even lying about the issues in order to gain that support".

He cites several examples of common tactics in propaganda. These include using selective stories that come across as wide covering and objective; reinforcing reasons and motivations to act due to threats against security; and narrowing the range of 'experts' to provide insight into the situation.

The last example is commonly used by television stations, which get retired military personnel to explain conflict-related issues or to treat official government accounts as fact rather than as just o­ne perspective that needs to be researched and verified.

Media manipulation

Shah says the military often manipulates the media by restricting or managing what information is presented and hence what the public is told.

He suggests that over time, the way that the media covers conflicts degrades in its quality, critique and objectivity.

There is some truth in this. Complaints about journalists being embedded with the troops are valid in that this makes it difficult for them to report objectively about issues that would affect the troops, with whom they would have forged close association.

Embedded journalists would have been told, even before they left for their assignments, that they would not have full freedom to report the news due to security concerns.

Over the past week, we have seen the US army telling some seasoned journalists to leave the battlefront because of 'unfavourable' reports.

Lindley Fraser, in his book Propaganda (Oxford University Press, 1957), says that, during World War 1, the British authorities were faced with three main tasks.

They had to convince the public at home of the rightness of the British cause; to establish and strengthen in the minds of neutrals the belief not merely that Britain and her friends were o­n the right side but also that they would in the end be victorious; and to depress and discourage Germany and her allies.

To address all these issues, the British set up the Department of Enemy Propaganda.

Psyching out the enemy

The US-led coalition in Iraq faces the same three tasks (just change Germany to Iraq) and so, they need a powerful and influential propaganda mechanism to help them win the war.

They need the daily briefings, video recordings and stories of heroism filed by embedded journalists to convince their own people and international citizens that their action is right, especially when it is widely resented for the unilateral manner in which it was initiated.

They also need to show their artillery and technological supremacy to shock the Iraqis into believing that they (the Iraqis) are no match for the coalition forces.

Even before the war, the US media, quoting US military officials, reported that psychological operations could be as important as the military operations.

US military officials said the propaganda operations were all about psyching out the enemy and getting them to lay down arms.

As for the Iraqis, they need to fight the might of America's propaganda war, to tell their own people that their president Saddam Hussein is still in power and that citizens must fire up nationalism to oust the enemy.

For the Iraqi officials, the battle is not o­nly to defend their turf, but also to ensure that their people still have confidence in the government.

False hope

So, no matter how great a defeat has been inflicted by the invading forces, the Iraqi government must keep up the appearance of being able to hold back the enemy.

In order to do this, their president reads out statements o­n television, or has his statements read out, urging citizens to join the fight to throw the enemy out of their land - even if the president knows that the end is near.

In a sense, this is akin to giving false hope to Iraqis, but it is ultimately their choice whether or not to accept the propaganda.

It is unfortunate that the media has become the tool of propaganda, knowingly or otherwise. But with a wide choice of media, it is possible to sift through the propaganda and see the real picture.

Interestingly, the Malaysian government too has joined in the propaganda war by sending 30 local journalists to the war front.

Claiming that available news is skewed, the government wants Malaysian journalists to provide straight and objective reports.

Yet, they will most probably have to rely o­n media briefings by the US Central Command or Iraqi government officials based in neighbouring countries like Jordan and Qatar. They may even pick up information from Iraqi television.

If that's the case, it will be merely be going back to the same sources, but with local flavour added.