WHY SADDAM'S TV STATION STILL BROADCASTS

Everyone and his brother is wondering why US forces haven't knocked Saddam's newsboys off the air yet. It's not like we have to take it out from the air--reports here and there indicate we already have US and possibly Polish commandos on the ground in and around Baghdad. With a couple of snips or a well-placed explosive these guys could presumably take the Iraqi megaphone off the air for a while, if not permanently. Further, while knocking the Iraqi state-run TV channels off the air today might make it necessary to rebuild it, and quickly, later, I don't think this is a factor either. US armed forces have as one of its many capabilities the technology for moving quickly into an area and setting up television and radio broadcasting operations. That's actually a component of the Armed Forced Radio and Television Service's mission--set up broadcast operations in combat zones to help keep the troops informed and, when off duty, entertained to whatever extent is possible and practical. Futher, with satellite technology and knowledge of the broadcast frequencies the Iraqi stations use, it seems reasonable that we could knock the local boys off the air and have our own signal running on their channels quite quickly. We might even be able to broadcast from ships anchored nearby, though that's purely speculation on my part.

So with all this capability to rapidly turn the signals around, why are we continuing to let Saddam's loudmouths keep ranting? It does presumably give the Iraqi people the impression that their "leaders" still lead, and it does give Saddam (if he's even coherent these days, a big "if") an outlet to Al-Jazeera and thereby to the much-discussed Arab street.

Here's my guess: A) We know what he'll do with his airtime. And B) because it gives our side another window into the status of the principles on their side. Part A--his use of airtime--has already proven useful to our cause. Once Iraqi troops captured the first American prisoners, they seem to have immediately executed a few and then paraded the survivors on television, which are both clear violations of the laws of warfare. Such action has served to galvanize the American public in favor of the war, while thoroughly enraging our troops on the ground in theatre who have seen or heard of Iraq's atrocities. Saddam or his henchmen clearly believed such an airing would cause Americans to lose heart, and this was a gross miscalculation. Part B has also proven useful. By trying to make it appear, via some ham-handed editing of obviously dated footage, that Saddam is alive and in charge, the Iraqis have managed to tell our war leaders the opposite--that the opening salvo was at least partially successful, else Saddam would have been on the air or would have made uncontrovertibly recent remarks for video tape by now. He hasn't, therefore he's injured, dead or too scared to step in front of a camera. At this point, any of the three possibilities is acceptable.

So that's why I think Iraqi TV is still broadcasting material it believes is useful to its cause--our side believes those same broadcasts serve some use to our cause too.

UPDATE: Of course, we could also have left Iraqi TV on the air because we were still readying an experimental e-bomb to drop on it.

UPDATE: My old military thinking paid off--from a CNN story about Saddam's on-again-off-again TV nets:

A senior U.S. official in Washington said Iraq's state-run television "was not taken out on Day One for a reason ... We learn from it."

Advantage JunkYardBlog!

UPDATE: The Brits have reportedly turned the signals around and are know using Iraq's own frequencies to broadcast to the people of Basra.