Media in Allied controlled Iraq

Since the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime more than 150 new Iraqi newspapers have sprung up, but not all of them have been welcomed by U.S. forces in the country.

While some media outlets are enjoying new press freedoms, one independent paper has been shut down.

The post-World War II German media was rigorously controlled by the remarkable but little known Major-General Alexis McClure, a pioneer of modern psychological warfare, ordered by the European war's commander-in-chief Dwight D Eisenhower to "rigidly control" all aspects of the post-war German media.

During the fighting McClure's Psychological Warfare Division (PSD) provided "consolidation propaganda," designed "to gain the cooperation of the German population in restoring essential services, and to create a public opinion favourable to post-war Allied aims". (US army psyops teams have exactly the same mission in Iraq today).

After the defeat of Germany his unit was renamed and re-tasked to become the post-war Information Control Division (ICD). Historian and former US army psyops commander Alfred H. Paddock Jr. relates how the ICD soon became "a key player in the reorientation and de-Nazification of Germany".

By July 1946 McClure was able to write to his friend, Time-Life Inc. vice-president C.D. Jackson,: "We now control 37 newspapers, six radio stations, 314 theatres, 642 (cinemas), 101 magazines, 237 book publishers, 7,384 book dealers and printers, and conduct about 15 public opinion surveys a month, as well as publish one newspaper with 1,500,000 circulation, three magazines, run the Associated Press of Germany and operate 20 library centres ... The job is tremendous."