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A clear sign that the Iraqis believe war is imminent - they've put their foot down with the Human Shields.



No more hanging out at the Andalus Hotel having healing sessions, time to go and sleep in power stations, oil refineries and other installations which were bombed in the Gulf War and which could meet the same fate this time.



Over the weekend, about 40 Human Shields got on the big red bus and headed back for London. Many had hoped to stay in hospitals and orphanages, but the Iraqis didn't see the point of that.

Daura Power Station

At a meeting on Saturday, the head of the Organisation of Friendship, Peace and Solidarity, which coordinates the Shields, said they must go to 60 target installations across the country.



They refused.



So after a minor altercation, compromise was reached: they would deploy in groups to six sites around Baghdad only.



No soft options like hospitals, only real targets. Anyone who wasn't happy had to leave.



This morning we went to the Daura Power Station, which provides electricity for about half a million people.



In 1991, it was hit first by a "silicon net" which disabled the plant and a few hours later bombed. One smokestack was destroyed and more than half the plant put out of action.



It took about a year to get it up and running again.



Sixteen Human Shields are living here, including Rajia Dajami, a Briton of Palestinian origin who works as a hairdresser in Croydon.



"I'd be a robot if I said I wasn't scared," she said.



"Everyone here on some level is a bit afraid. But every single day we do meditation at 5am to psyche ourselves up for this, and I know that when the bombs start falling I'm not going to go into shock, and I'm not going to be a wreck or a liability to the rest of the group."



Rajia left her job without giving an explanation, but her boss knows where she is because she has seen her on television.



Her mother worries but supports her. She has few doubts about what she is doing.



Gordon Sloan, an Australian architect with spikey hair and a lanky frame, was well aware that they hadn't been through anything difficult yet. "At the moment this is a Club Med war zone," he said. "We're an active deterrent."



He was also an optimist. "Missiles hit this place in 91 and no-one was killed, so there is the opportunity to survive a direct attack," he said, brightly.



I felt rather sorry for the manager of the power plant, Janan Matti, who now has to worry about the foreigners as well as his own staff. "We have three bomb shelters," he said.



"Iraqi people who work here are human shields too because they are also civilians, not military."



The co-ordinator of the Shields, Ken O'Keefe, who sports an arresting array of tattoos and fought in the Gulf war as a US marine, says there are about 150 Shields left.



Some may stay the course, others may not. "I do not think we're being used by the Iraqis," he said. "Our independence is that we can leave if we want."