Baghdad Diary
Updated on 27 March 2003
Our Diplomatic Correspondent Lindsey Hilsum tells you how it is as a reporter in Baghdad.
The dust-storm produced an eerie grey-yellow light. When we arrived at the scene of the rocket attack which killed some 14 people in a Baghdad suburb on Wednesday, it started to rain, so bystanders including ourselves were drenched in mud falling from the sky.
The wreckage of cars and collapsed buildings was covered in a coating of wet dust. It felt like another world, another planet, a place where nothing looks right any more and no-one can see the future. Nothing was clear. The storm enveloped the city, and we could see only a few yards ahead through the murky half-light.
We see only part of the picture, moving between the Palestine Hotel and the Press Centre and the places the government takes us to film damage to what it says is civilian infrastructure.
Our days are mapped out: awake at 8am to get to the press centre and see if there are press conferences or opportunities to film. A few hours to collect information and pictures, then back to the hotel to edit our story - and then back to the Press Centre to feed it.
We have to send it by satellite before 5.30pm - four and a half hours before Channel 4 News goes on air - because everyone must be out of the Press Centre before dark.
The Americans have targeted the radio and TV station next door, and we don't want to be caught in the next attack.
Back to the hotel to eat supper and listen to the BBC or CNN news on our satellite radio receiver(sometimes, we treat ourselves to a half hour of music, but then we worry that we're missing something and switch back to news). Before 10.30pm we must be ready to witness the air raids. We sleep between attacks. We are very tired.
There must be 150 journalists here from all over the world. Relatively cheap satellite technology has changed the face of journalism which used to be dominated by Americans and Europeans.
There are TV crews here from the Philippines, India, Mexico, Chile, South Africa and all over the world. There's even a newspaperman from Bangladesh. The Arab journalists are way ahead of the rest of us - they get the best access, because Iraq thinks the watching Arab people are an important constituency.
The live pictures of air raids that you see on the screen are from Abu Dhabi TV or Al Jazeera.
How accurate is what we bring you? There is no active censorship - no-one checks my script or looks at the pictures before we send them. But - as in any country at war - there's a limit to where we can go, who we can talk to and what we can see.
So we peer through the dust and try to make out the shapes, and understand what's really going on.
It's clear to me that the Americans and British have met more resistance than they were expecting. The Iraqi government constantly praises irregular forces - Baath party militia, the popular Al Quds army and the armed tribesmen.
It seems that instead of confronting the invasion with a weakened standing army, they have started a guerrilla war in their own land. This is very dangerous for the Americans, because an invading army on unfamiliar territory can never quell completely a guerrilla force on its home turf operating in the shadows.
The Americans say there's a problem because fighters are "dressed as civilians" - well, they are civilians. Most Iraqi men are armed - it's the culture. And it seems that the loyalists are fighting back in a way which the Americans did not predict.
"They say they are facing pockets of resistance," said Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz to journalists in Baghdad. "But the best way to resist is in pockets. Very dangerous pockets. The Americans thought they would be welcomed with music and flowers, but they are being welcomed with bullets."
I am well aware that this could change very quickly - air power is a ferocious weapon and they are bringing it to bear on southern Iraq now as well as the capital. So we wait in Baghdad for the battle which must surely come here soon. We have stocked up on tinned food and bottled water. We have truck batteries and generators to supply power.
I am completely reliant on Tim and Paul, the other members of the team who are utterly practical and well organised, as well as Yussuf our driver. Correspondents appear on screen and people learn their names, but I have to tell you this correspondent keeps going only because those whose names are not known work so hard and so efficiently.
Before I fall asleep at night, I wonder how long it will last. The battle for Baghdad could start tomorrow, or in a week's time. It could be over in days - or it could be a long siege lasting months.
By Thursday morning, the hotel staff were washing the stairs - the dust had cleared and the sun was shining. We're told the Americans are only 50 miles away. Maybe now the dust has gone, we'll be able to make out the shapes approaching us over the horizon.
