Shadow Warriors: Inside the Special Forces

'He said not to be concerned if I had to give the briefing before he returned. He told me, 'The success of the briefing will only determine whether we take part in this operation, or return home to Fort Bragg to rake pine needles.' That kind of the essence of our relationship. We were always direct with each other, but with a great deal of friendship and humor. He was my boss. He knew he could count on me.'

The CINC's office called for Devlin twice, but then sent him back when more pressing matters delayed the meeting. 'The numerous overlapping demands on the CINCs time were amazing,' Devlin recalls. Finally, General Schwarzkopf had time for the briefing.

'I went in and gave General Schwarzkopf a personal, one-on-one briefing from a three-ring binder,' Devlin continues. 'About a half-dozen staffers followed me in and stood in the corner waiting to see me dismembered, because the majority of the CINC's staff didn't think much of us being there. At the conclusion of my briefing, General Schwarzkopf pounded his right fist on the table and said, 'This is exactly what we need. There's an information war going on right now and we're losing it! What do I need to do to make this happen?' The staff's acceptance of us changed amazingly following the briefing.

Schwarzkopf personally edited a draft message, making it much stronger, and then authorized its transmission to Colin Powell. The message requested PSYOP assistance, and, as a result, the 4th PSYOP Group began deploying to the Gulf on August 25. The first group to deploy included Normand, Devlin and the planning staff, and a few others. Once there, as additional PSYOP assets came in from Fort Bragg, Normand and his immediate staff prepared more detailed operational plans covering a wide range of strategic, operational, and tactical missions. But even with the CINC's backing, most of Normand PSYOP plans sat for months at the Defense Department, apparently stymied because of geopolitical sensitivities in Washington.

'We're afraid of cross-border operations,' explained Colonel Normand later. Cross-border operations — Irom Saudi Arabia, say, over the border into Iraq — were in many cases inherently dangerous and always carried a potential to backfire and cause embarrassment. Thus they were likely to be sidetracked by Washington. This meant that a strategic campaign aimed at telling Iraqi citizens why the war was evil couldn't be launched. But it also hamstrung the tactical operations aimed at Iraqi soldiers.

'A leaflet is a cross-border operation,' said Normand. 'You're told to start targeting the Iraqi soldiers. Well, you can't do that because they're not on your side of the border. You can't do cross-border operations.'

The official resistance led Normand to shuttle between Washington and Riyadh with one plan after another, seeking approval from the Joint Chiefs and a myriad of other military brass, as well as Defense and State Department officials. After several weeks of this, he finally received approval to proceed.

After a fashion: Washington had split the plan into two halves — overt and covert. 'Overt' PSYOP actions were okay, but covert actions were put on hold. The catch-22: Nearly everything Normand wanted to do was considered 'covert,' much of it simply because it required cooperation from another organization or country. With the exception of a film called Line in the Sand—which had to be reedited because the delays made parts of it out of date — the major PSYOP initiatives against Iraq were put on hold. The film would later be smuggled into Iraq and distributed freely around the rest of the world; but little else in the way of a 'strategic' PSYOP campaign — targeting common Iraqi citizens and telling them why their country was being attacked — would ever be implemented.

Carl Stiner has views about this kind of thing: 'Certain lawyers get in the act, and you've got certain people that don't want their thumbprint on anything that might have risks associated with it. That's the way they've survived; they limit their exposure. And when you run into that, you've got to get the Chairman or the CINC to override all these birds and get their asses out of the process or they'll delay it to eternity.'

Finally, Normand went to Schwarzkopf in mid-December, shortly before he was scheduled to relinquish command of the 4th PSYOP Group for another assignment. Standing in front of the CINC in disgust, he told him, 'We need to send a message back to Washington that if we don't get approval soon we can't execute.' He handed the general a piece of paper. 'I recommend you send this message.'

Normand had carefully prepared a 'Let's Go' message, a masterwork of diplomatic language, politely requesting Washington to 'relook' the issue.

'Bullshit,' said Schwarzkopf. He ripped up the paper and began writing his own message. It began with the words 'Bungling bureaucrats in Washington,' and then got really nasty.

'What do you think about that?' the CINC asked, handing it back to Normand.

'If you'll sign it, I—'

'It's signed,' Schwarzkopf broke in.

The PSYOP tactical campaign aimed at Iraqi troops suddenly hit the fast track. The campaign took off with the start of the air war a few weeks later.

MUCH of the DESERT SHIELD/STORM PSYOP mission was aimed simply at countering the propaganda Saddam was spreading. The PSYOP warriors were trying to set the record straight. Arab countries were a vital part of President Bush's carefully constructed coalition, and so it was vital that their citizens, and in fact the Islamic world in general, know the truth about why the coalition was fighting Saddam.

Cairo is the Arab media center, the Arab 'Hollywood.' The highly regarded Radio Cairo is there, many Arab and international news organizations have offices in the city, and Arab intellectuals tend to congregate there. If you want to get the word out to the Arab world — and to the entire Islamic world — you want to work through these facilities. At the same time, Egypt was an ally in the coalition. Government officials as well as media members were receptive to American-inspired suggestions and information.

Normand sent Devlin to Cairo at the end of October.

Here are Devlin's thoughts on the experience:

'The extensive Iraqi propaganda machine required countering with factual information that Saddam was in every way a despicable human being — a horrific leader who did not care about his people, an unjust Muslim, a terrible neighbor, an untrustworthy Arab and Muslim, and a liar in everything he said.' The PSYOP operation, therefore, aimed to point out these truths and strip him of support from the Islamic world and elsewhere, while eliciting increased Islamic and world support for the coalition forces. With strong backing by the American ambassador, who provided entry to the Egyptian government and military, and by American embassy officials, Devlin organized a cooperative effort out of Cairo to counter the continuous Iraqi propaganda.

'Because the invasion was literally a television news event, it was important to point out to the entire world exactly what a brutal dictator he was. But we wanted to point out specifically to the Islamic world that Saddam had attacked his Islamic brothers without justification, or the support of the rest of the Islamic world.

'According to Islamic law, you can be a bad Muslim and an evil man who does not follow the law. But then you can have a change of heart and convert to a follower of the law. Once you have done that, you can proclaim the right to call a Jihad.' Saddam claimed he was a good Muslim in calling for a justified Jihad. 'But also according to Islamic law, Muslims don't attack other Muslims. So Saddam's claim had this fundamental flaw.'

Both the Arab world and the Islamic world as a whole had to pay attention to this truth, but it obviously could not come directly from Americans.

'We wanted to get word out to the Islamic world that noted Islamic clerics faulted his reasoning and justification, according to the Koran and Islamic law. Our goal was not to get them to say what we wanted; we wanted them to say, print, and transmit what they were already saying as Islamic experts, recognized as such by the Islamic world: Saddam's claims were not true, according to Islamic custom and law.'

This message went out: Devlin's team and their Egyptian colleagues found ways to insert it into plays, radio and TV shows, soap operas, and magazines and newspapers. Islamic conferences held for world Islamic leaders condemned Saddam. The end result was a chorus of voices in all media denouncing Saddam from recognized Islamic sources.

'I never told them what to write. The suggestion would be that an article (or program, or conference, etc.) stating their beliefs would be useful. They would take it from there. One result was a book, written very quickly, by a noted Islamic scholar.

'Effective PSYOP is not always preparing the message; it is extremely effective when already available materials, programming, or information are properly directed.'

Another aspect of the PSYOP war saw the 4th Group working like a political campaign's media advisers, suggesting talking points for U.S. officials and others who would counter Saddam's propaganda. 'We suggested four or five information points every few days for leaders of the United States, Egypt, and other allies, such as Great Britain, to use in public interviews, press conferences, and statements. This showed that the coalition force really