Yes, War Really Is Hell

The risks of war? There was the risk of being bombed if you had the misfortune to live in a neighborhood where US targeters thought Saddam Hussein might be located. It could be the Iraqi dictator's remains are at the bottom of that hole in a residential district of Baghdad, waiting for DNA identification from some scrap of cell tissue covertly taken, maybe years ago during a warm handshake by April Glaspie, the US envoy who told Saddam back in 1990 that Iraq's quarrels with Kuwait were of scant interest to the United States. Or maybe Saddam was miles away when the pilot launched those four bombs. But we do know that nine people in houses next to the restaurant, supposedly perched on a Saddam bunker, are absolutely and positively dead.

Then there's the risk of just trying to run away, down the wrong road at the wrong time, like those Iraqi families fleeing Nasiriya or al-Hillah, chewed up by cluster bombs or riddled with bullets. Mark Franchetti counted twelve in one appalling episode, described in a wonderful piece of war reporting for the London Sunday Times on March 30.

And there's the risk of being a journalist in Iraq, particularly if you work for an Arab news network like Al Jazeera (which recently got a prize from the Index on Censorship for its skill in maintaining independent commentary), taking news footage of scenes like the one described by Franchetti, footage that would never make it onto US TV screens. No doubt remembering the US attack on its Kabul office in 2001, Al Jazeera notified the US military of the location of its office on the banks of the Tigris. The Pentagon said it had taken due note and promised it wouldn't be attacked.

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