Blair and Bush remind Iraqis they are not conquerors

US President George W Bush, launching a sweeping media campaign in war-torn Iraq, said in a televised address yesterday: “Your nation will soon be free.”

Meanwhile, British ally Tony Blair assured Iraqis that coalition soldiers are “friends and liberators, not your conquerors.”

The remarks were being beamed throughout Iraq from a US C-130 Hercules aircraft. Using air- and ground-based transmitting facilities, the US will broadcast five hours of programming five days a week on the same channels on which Iraqis have received state television programmes. Programming will be controlled by the US and British military, but may include rebroadcasts from independent news outlets in both countries, the White House said. US and British government briefings may feature.

For Iraqis, the effort means they will lose one state-run media outlet and gain another, but presidential spokesman Ari Fleischer said the Pentagon hopes that free, Iraqi-run media will soon flourish: “Free press is a crucial part of a free Iraq and we anticipate that beginning to happen.”

In addition, the coalition yesterday started publishing a newspaper called “The Times” in southern Iraq, with an initial circulation of 10,000, the White House said. The broadcasts will also be heard on Iraqi radio and texts of the Bush-Blair remarks were translated into Arabic and distributed on flyers throughout Iraq.

Bush and Blair taped their remarks Tuesday during a war summit in Hillsborough.

“Our only enemy is Saddam’s brutal regime and that regime is your enemy as well,” Bush said.

Blair, in his message for the new station called “Towards Freedom,” told Iraqis that the United States and Britain had not wanted war: “but in refusing to give up his weapons of mass destruction, Saddam gave us no choice but to act. Now that the war has begun, it will be seen through to the end.”

The broadcast was part of a campaign to convince Iraqis and the rest of the Arab world that US troops are not a hostile invasion force. There is still widespread opposition to the war throughout much of the world.

“The goals of our coalition are clear and limited,” Bush said. He said they included, ending Saddam's regime, ridding the nation of weapons of mass destruction, providing security, respecting religious traditions, building a representative government and creating a sovereign nation.