U.S. overstating Zarqawi’s threat - Report

[sonz]

The U.S. army is conducting a propaganda campaign to exaggerate the importance of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq, The Washington Post reported, citing military sources and internal documents.

According to military documents, the U.S. propaganda campaign is designed to turn Iraqis against Jordanian-born Zarqawi by using their perceived dislike of foreigners, the Post said.

American officials also claim that the campaign has been successful, noting that some tribal Iraqi leaders have targeted Zarqawi’s supporters.

The Post said that the Zarqawi campaign began two years ago and was believed to be ongoing. It has included leaflets, radio and television broadcasts, Internet postings and at least one leak to a U.S. reporter.

Military documents also show that the “U.S. Home Audience” is one of the targets of a broader propaganda campaign, the paper said.

One military officer familiar with the program told the newspaper that the material was all in Arabic, but he added that the Zarqawi campaign "probably raised his profile in the American press's view."

But some top military intelligence officials believe that the threat posed by Zarqawi has been overstated.

Although Zarqawi and other foreign insurgents have carried out deadly attacks in Iraq, they remain "a very small part of the actual numbers," The Post cited Colonel Derek Harvey, who served as a military intelligence officer in Iraq, as telling an army meeting at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, last summer.

The Post says Harvey pointed out that "our own focus on Zarqawi has enlarged his caricature, if you will -- made him more important than he really is, in some ways."

Zarqawi has a $25 million U.S. bounty on his head.