ABSTRACT
The Iraqis' techniques were as coarse and heavy-handed as their system of governance. The aim of the Iraqi military was to marshal not only domestic support, but also international backing for Saddam Hussein. Both sides recognized that this was as much a media war as a war on the battlefield. Unlike the Israeli authorities at the onset of the intifada, the military on both sides of the Arabian Peninsula divide started out with enormous advantages. The vast majority of the reporters who covered the war with Iraq were parachutists: men and women who spoke no Arabic and who were ignorant of the area in which they were working. As during the intifada, the parachutists were ill-equipped to deal with some of the fundamental political and military issues the war brought in its wake or to spot some of the most important trends.
