Hardpressed

In some ways, say analysts, the PR setbacks from the first 10 days have been more serious than military ones. Images such as those that blanketed the Arab news media this weekend are likely to resonate around the Arab world long after the war.

8216;8216;The political damage is severe,8217;8217; said Shibley Telhami, a University of Maryland professor who studies Arab public opinion. 8216;8216;The real issue will be what are the consequences of US victory, and how Arabs perceive the United States after this is all over.8217;8217;

While insisting that it is early to establish whether the devastation in the Baghdad market was caused by a stray US missile or an Iraqi bomb, US officials acknowledge the problem. They say that it will take other powerful images 8212; of Iraqis celebrating Saddam8217;s downfall 8212; to counter pictures dominating Arab TV screens.

8216;8216;You don8217;t lose the propaganda war one week or the next,8217;8217; said a senior US official responsible for shaping outreach efforts to the Arab world. 8216;8216;You win the propaganda war by doing the right thing. In the end, people will see that we have done the right thing.8217;8217;

On the home front, opinion polls show that domestic support for the war has remained at around 70 per cent, though the number of Americans who think that the war is going well has declined sharply from the campaign8217;s opening days. 8216;8216;Domestically, we8217;re doing well,8217;8217; said Jim Wilkinson, director of strategic communications for US Central Command. Wilkinson recently held a round-table for Arab reporters and agreed to their request for a prayer room at the command press briefings in Doha. The immediate problem is that images of happy Iraqi civilians greeting US troops as liberators have not materialised.

The first day of ground fighting produced footage of a US Marine officer tearing down a Hussein portrait with Iraqi civilians in Safwan. 8216;8216;Americans very good,8217;8217; the Associated Press quoted a civilian as saying. 8216;8216;Iraq wants to be free.8217;8217;

By the seventh day , networks were carrying pictures of Iraqis surrounding the first aid trucks to reach Safwan. Instead of greeting US troops, they were shouting anti-American slogans.

8216;8216;With our blood, we sacrifice ourselves for you, Saddam,8217;8217; the crowd chanted, as other Iraqis swarmed grabbing every food parcel in sight. It was not the story line envisaged by the Bush administration when they began planning 8216;8216;Operation Iraqi Freedom8217;8217;.

While officials have been angered by Al-Jazeera8217;s reporting, they also understand its importance. According to the University of Maryland8217;s Telhami, almost half the Arab world now watches satellite TV broadcasts, such as Al-Jazeera, up from eight per cent just two years ago. In Saudi Arabia, it is as high as 95 per cent.

So far, said Telhami, the US media outreach campaign has had little impact on the Arab street. 8216;8216;Even though our message is scoffed at in the Arab media, it8217;s being heard,8217;8217; an official said. 8216;8216;People are going to remember the message as they start to see liberation come to life.8217;8217; LAT-WP