Hearts and minds (Iraq)

Hearts and Minds was a public relations campaign used in the Iraq War (2003-2011).

Background

The operation to "win Iraqi hearts and minds", had been established before the war started. One Central Command planner noted that psychological operations (PSYOPs) were slated to play "a crucial role ... to any conflict in Iraq and to the war on terrorism". Senior US military leaders placed such an importance on the operation that they reworked the way in which the related PSYOPs were carried out, often citing the failures during Operation Enduring Freedom, where it took as long as two days to get PSYOPs through the approval process.[1]

June 2004 Congressional Hearing, "Iraq: Winning Hearts and Minds"

Noting that, "The United States and its Coalition partners are attempting to win the hearts and minds of the people in Iraq while providing military security and support to economic and political reform programs. But some assumptions made about Iraq proved faulty, and some policy decisions were controversial and created more doubt than confidence in U.S. capabilities and intentions,"[2] Christopher Shays (R-CT), Chairman of the Subcommittee on National Security, Emerging Threats, and International Relations held hearings on June 15, 2004, with the aim of determining "corrective actions that might be undertaken to regain the confidence and cooperation (hearts and minds) of the Iraqi people, improve public diplomacy messages, and help chart the course for future efforts in Iraq."[2]

The hearing focused upon two main questions: 1. What policy decisions made by the Coalition Provisional Authority contributed to changes in Iraqi confidence and cooperation? and, 2. What steps does the United States need to take to regain the confidence and cooperation of the Iraqi people?[3]

gollark: Interesting!
gollark: In languages such as Haskell, generics are extremely natural. `data Beeoid a b = Beeoid a | Metabeeoid (Beeoid b a) a | Hyperbeeoid a b a b` trivially defines a simple generic data type. It is only in the uncoolest of languages that this simplicity has been stripped away, with generic support artificially limited to a small subset of types, generally just arrays and similar structures. Thus, reject no generics, return to generalized, simple and good generics.
gollark: Great. Doing so. Thanks, syl.
gollark: Or at least... more consistent, which is kind of similar.
gollark: Perhaps it could be argued that generics are the natural state of things somehow, and simpler than no generics.

See also

References
  1. ‘Hearts and minds’ key to US Iraq strategy, Andrew Koch
  2. Announcement of Public Hearing, US Congress, June 10, 2004
  3. "Briefing Memorandum" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2006-11-14. Retrieved 2006-11-10.

Further reading
  • John Tierney, "Iraqi Family Ties Complicate American Efforts for Change," New York Times, September 27, 2003.
  • Amatzia Baram, "The Iraqi Tribes and the Post-Saddam System," The Brookings Institution Iraq Memo #18, July 8, 2003.
  • Paul Wolfowitz, "The Road Map For A Sovereign Iraq," Wall Street Journal, June 9, 2004.
  • Steve Tatham, Royal Naval Spokesman Iraq, "Losing Arab Hearts & Minds; The Coalition, Al-Jazeera and Muslim Public opinion" Hurst&Co London 2006.
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