LONDON: Chances are that people will first learn about a war on Iraq via the web, email, instant messages or text message. Things were different during the last Gulf War. Then, memorably, CNN relayed real-time pictures of the first air strikes direct to the world.

Cue the age of 24/7 rolling news. However, the present moment is dominated by a different kind of “networked news”, one in which the net is integrated into the mainstream media, where online communications play an unpredictable, influential role.

People used email and IRC (internet relay chat) channels to relay frontline news from Kuwait and Baghdad during the last Gulf war. With the mainstream news media so tightly regimented, the idea that the net might represent a more open channel to the reality of war began to form. That idea took hold during the conflicts in the Balkans, peaking during Kosovo, the first real net war. Then, during the allied bombing campaign, reports on its effects were circulated via mailing lists, discussion groups and web pages.

However, the ease with which all this information could be accessed led to a more skeptical attitude online. People realised that such reports could be easily faked, that the internet wasn’t some sort of inherently “pure” channel, but could be used by all sides to spread disinformation and propaganda. We began to conceive of the internet as one of the places an information war might happen. In a way, that’s where we are now. The upcoming conflict will be a full-blown information war; it is already a networked conflict.

“The Pentagon’s current gospel is network-centric warfare,” says James Der Derian, director of the InfoTechWarPeace Project at Brown University (www.infopeace.org) and author of Virtuous War: Mapping the Military-Industrial-Media-Entertainment Network. “Obviously the internet will be part of that battlespace, with plans to flood Iraqi servers with propaganda and disinformation.”

In the run up to the war, the US has been spamming Iraq, sending emails to every address in the country, advising citizens not to deploy chemical, biological or nuclear weapons. Saddam has responded by closing down the internet and purging all such communications.

“But other networks will also be part of an all-out infowar,” Der Derian says. “Command-and-control systems, like the air defence networks, will be taken out with smart missiles and possibly even electro-magnetic pulse weapons. Primetime/ cable networks will be red hot with war fever and coverage. NGOs will roll out humanitarian networks. Anti-war networks will send out marching orders. Soldiers, sailors, and airmen will email stories back home.”

Since Sept 11, and the declaration of a war on terror, we’ve been living through a kind of low-level infowar. Many people used blogs to think through the destruction of the World Trade Center, with a more distinct group of warbloggers using their sites to argue for war, first in Afghanistan then Iraq. In response, anti-war bloggers and peace activists have gone online. As the events of the weekend showed, they have used the internet to spread information and coordinate action.

There has been an explosion of information from all sides about the war online. Attention has recently focused on “Salam”, an Iraqi blogger, whose site (http://dear_raed.blogspot.com) features reports on life in Baghdad and whose “authenticity” has been much discussed.—Dawn/The Guardian News Service