Last month Britain made the people of Iraq more secure from terrorism than at any time since the fall of Saddam Hussein. And millions of Iraqis are grateful for having the best public services - from schools to clean water and power - they have had since the first Gulf war.

These were headlines that Geoff Hoon, the defence secretary, hoped would appear in British newspapers during "Big October", the code name for a media offensive aimed to convert the UK public to supporting the outcome of the Iraq war.

But now, after daily reports of terrorist attacks on the Americans and last week's killing of 17 Italian policemen, the men and women from the Ministry of Defence are blaming "negative attitudes by news editors" for the failure of the headlines to materialise. The ministry's strategy - drawn up at a meeting in London on September 16 - has been revealed after the leaking of confidential papers from a media seminar which have been seen by the Guardian.

The Iraq Troop Contributing Nations seminar - also attended by representatives from the Czech Republic, Denmark, Italy, Lithuania, Holland, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal and Romania - was aimed at creating a strategy to counteract potential unrest during the holy month of Ramadan.

The documents say: "The MoD sees Ramadan as a major potential period of instability in Iraq and a time when Iraqis will assess the effectiveness of the coalition partners' authority. Information operations are seen as a tool to help keep the situation manageable."

It goes on to say that "the MoD's main target is the UK public and media while [the main target] of the Basra headquarters for British troops is the Iraqi people".

The two main issues to push in the British media were: "Security in Iraq - try to push the perception that Iraq is becoming more secure" and "utilities and reconstruction - try to demonstrate that service and utilities are as good as if not better than before the war".

A spokesman for the MoD yesterday reeled off pages of statistics which he said showed that things were getting better. He said one third of people in Basra were now connected to sewerage and 80% to mains water, more electricity was being generated in Basra than before the war and hospitals now had their own independent generators.

The spokesman said: "These are not being reported because of the negative attitude of news editors who find front page reports about deaths more newsworthy. Only one paper, the Economist, has taken an interest."

However Menzies Campbell, Liberal Democrat deputy leader, said yesterday: "A media campaign can only be successful if it is connected to reality. The search for weapons of mass destruction has yielded nothing and the Iraq security situation has deteriorated."