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Interview: Mike Linstead Of The BBC Discusses Some Of The Radio Programs The U.S. Military Is Broadcasting To The Iraqo People
Weekend Edition Saturday: December 21 2002
 U.S. Rains Radio Broadcasts, Pamphlets on Iraq
SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC
SCOTT SIMON, host:
This past Monday, the US military started broadcasting directly to the people of Iraq. From 6 until 11 in the evening, local time, Iraqis can tune their radios to broadcasts of what US Central Command calls `information radio.'
SOUNDBITE OF SINGING IN FOREIGN LANGUAGE
SIMON: Now the music you hear was recorded from one of those broadcasts on Tuesday by the BBC. It was broadcast from a specially equipped C-130 airplane flying outside of Iraqi air space. There were similar broadcasts in the fall of 2001 to the people of Afghanistan. They were telling the Afghan people that US and British soldiers would soon put their boots onto Afghan soil. All of these broadcasts feature music as well as announcements.
Joining us now is Mike Linstead, news editor with BBC Monitoring in Caversham, England. Mr. Linstead's office recorded and translated portions of these broadcasts. Last year, he brought us recordings of the broadcasts to Afghanistan. And thanks for joining us again, Mike.
Mr. MIKE LINSTEAD (BBC Monitoring): That's all right, Scott.
SIMON: And these broadcasts to Iraq have a similar tone?
Mr. LINSTEAD: These broadcasts to Iraq are a bit different from the ones to Afghanistan. They're not as threatening as the ones to Afghanistan. Obviously, we're in a different scenario still with Iraq and so these broadcasts that we monitored are, on the whole, more reassuring to the people of Iraq than the ones that were broadcast to Afghanistan.
SIMON: Is there a central message or theme?
Mr. LINSTEAD: The sections of the broadcasts, the first section, deals with a biography of the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Mr. ElBaradei, who is in charge of the inspection teams currently in Iraq, and that particular section of the broadcast we think is definitely an attempt to emphasize Mr. ElBaradei's Arab identity--he is, after all, from Egypt; he was born there--and to reassure the Iraqis, perhaps, that the man in charge of the inspection teams in his country at the moment is himself a fellow Arab.
SIMON: Let's hear a clip from that if we could, please.
SOUNDBITE FROM RADIO BROADCAST
Unidentified Woman #1: (Foreign language spoken)
SIMON: And in this section--we have the English-language transcript in front of us--it introduces Dr. Mohammed ElBaradei: born in Egypt, 1942; gained a bachelor's degree in law in 1962 at the University of Cairo; a doctorate in international law at New York School of Law in '74. His career began with the Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1964. So as you say, Mike, this is to establish the fact that this is an Egyptian--this is a man from that part of the world.
Mr. LINSTEAD: However there is a sting in the tail of this message. If you read through the whole message, the very final paragraph says quite clearly any interference with Dr. ElBaradei's duties or the inspection teams will only delay a solution to end this crisis. Saddam and his regime can help end the pain and suffering of the people of Iraq by complying with the tenets of UN Security Council Resolution 1441. So clearly this is also a warning to the people of Iraq to cooperate fully with the inspection teams currently there.
SIMON: Any broadcast that you've picked up, recorded, monitored, translated, that provide any kind of preface to US military operations in the area?
Mr. LINSTEAD: Well, certainly I think that's the kind of tenor of the second section of the broadcast. After the biography of Dr. ElBaradei, there's about a quarter of an hour of music again. And then there's a short item explaining to the people of Iraq that currently there's a military exercise going on whereby the United States is moving its command and control center to the Middle East region.
SOUNDBITE OF RADIO BROADCAST
Unidentified Man: (Foreign language spoken)
Mr. LINSTEAD: This is telling us that--this is quoting, in fact, General Franks. And he's saying that "This exercise is one that gives us the opportunity to deploy this command post. And the purpose of this exercise is command, control and communication." So although this exercise is only an exercise, it's quite clearly a message to the people of Iraq and to those in power in Iraq that America is in the process of practicing a military engagement in the region.
SIMON: Are there any touches in the tenor of the programming, either in music or announcements, that your monitors have noticed and wondered about?
Mr. LINSTEAD: The announcers are a man and a woman. They are both very well-spoken, I'm told by the Arabic monitors. They speak standard Arabic, but they speak with Lebanese accents rather than Iraqi accents, so these are quite clearly people who are not from Iraq. They are people who are from Lebanon. That's one thing that we noticed.
The other thing, I suppose, is the question of why, in the music sections there is not only Arabic popular songs, but also Western music.
SIMON: We want to play some of that music--a great American standard, "At Last." It was made famous by Etta James. We want to present the version that's been on information radio, and, at least, so far, our experts haven't been able to identify the singer.
SOUNDBITE OF "AT LAST"
Unidentified Woman #2: (Singing) At last my love has come along. My lonely days are over...
SIMON: Assuming this is an American psyops, psychological warfare operation, which I guess has more or less been confirmed by Central Command, there is no casual insertion of a tune, right? I mean, there's nobody saying, `Hey, you know, I like this song. Let's spin a few platters.'
Mr. LINSTEAD: Well, I imagine not. I mean, these are psyops broadcasts, there's no doubt about it. I mean, one can read about this on US military Web sites. I mean, I cannot imagine that this is purely fortuitous. It's not purely chance why this particular song was chosen. Doesn't mean to say it was a good choice, of course.
SIMON: Mike, thanks very much.
Mr. LINSTEAD: You're welcome, Scott.
SIMON: Mike Linstead, news editor with BBC Monitoring in Caversham, England. This week, BBC Monitoring recorded US military broadcasts to the people of Iraq.
Unidentified Woman #2: (Singing) Ohhhh, woooo, whoo. At last.
Unidentified Woman #3: (Foreign language spoken)
SIMON: And in the most approximate terms, we translate that as `You're listening to WEEKEND EDITION' from NPR News.
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