Iraqi TV Head Quits, Says U.S. Losing Propaganda War

Iraqi TV Head Quits, Says U.S. Losing Propaganda War
Tue August 5, 2003 11:21 AM ET
By Khaled Yacoub Oweis

LONDON (Reuters) - The postwar director of U.S.-backed Iraqi Television
has quit, saying the United States is losing the propaganda war to
countries like Iran and to the fugitive Saddam Hussein.

Three months after being flown to Baghdad on board a U.S. plane to
relaunch Iraqi television and radio, former exile Ahmad Rikabi is
disillusioned and back in London for the foreseeable future.

"Saddam Hussein is doing better at marketing himself, through Al Jazeera
and Al Arabiya Gulf channels," Rikabi said, referring to the audio tapes
believed to be from the former Iraqi leader which have been supplied to
those stations and broadcast across the region.

He said that as the United States failed to invest in Iraqi stations or
to retain local staff, channels such as Iran’s Al Alam and Qatar’s Al
Jazeera were gaining popularity in Iraq.

"The people of Iraq, including the Sunni Muslims, are not about to turn
against their liberators, but they are being incited to do so. These
channels contribute to tension within Iraq. You need television at their
level," he told Reuters.

Rikabi uttered the first words broadcast on Iraqi national airwaves
after the fall of Saddam Hussein on April 9.

"Welcome to the new Iraq. Welcome to an Iraq without Saddam, Uday or
Qusay," Rikabi’s emotional voice said in a radio broadcast over a
transmitter erected by U.S. soldiers at Baghdad airport.

One of the first acts of the new director was to broadcast the Shi’ite
call to prayer, along with the Sunni one — a symbol of equality after
decades of discrimination against the Shi’ite majority by the former
ruling Baath Party.

Rikabi helped recruit a team that got transmission up to 16 hours a day,
operating out of a convention center in Baghdad that included a
fortified bedroom once reserved for Saddam.

But many of the staff have now left, Rikabi said, adding that locals
were being paid too little.

SAIC, a California-based company contracted to relaunch the television
station, said it had no comment on Rikabi’s remarks.

"The United States needs to listen to Iraqis more, and not just in the
media sector," Rikabi said.

BRIGHT FUTURE

In exile Rikabi worked with the U.S.-funded Radio Free Iraq, dreaming of
return. Of the millions of Iraqis in the diaspora, he was among the
first of only a few to have returned to Iraq since the fall of Saddam.

He had never seen his homeland before, his father and mother having
escaped from Iraq in the year he was born, 1969. He met his brother, a
colonel in the now defunct Iraqi army, for the first time in April.

"It will take us generations to repair what Saddam did. Iraqi society
runs on lies. There is virtually no independent thinking. Sycophancy and
sectarianism are rife," he said.

But the broadcaster and writer said he remained optimistic that Iraq
would recover. Elections and employment, he said, would give everyone a
stake in the country.

"People will not invest as long as you have assassinations, military
operations, curfews and checkpoints," he said.

Iraq’s lot, he said, would be worse if the U.S. troops now pulled out,
as the guerrillas who attack them daily want.

"The street does not support those behind the instability. People know
that only the U.S. presence is preventing a blood bath in the form of
revenge against the Baathists," he said.