The Baghdad Follies

No one wants to go to Iraq -- it's not a fun war. Afghanistan was fun. It had colorful resistance fighters on horseback. It had Al Qaeda bases. There were moonscape mountains and green river valleys. You could get in your car and head off to the Hindu Kush. "You felt as if you were in the back of beyond," says Alissa Rubin of the Los Angeles Times. "I'd probably move to Afghanistan in a heartbeat."

Iraq, by contrast, is a place reporters can't wait to leave. Baghdad has choking dust storms, two-hour traffic jams and rubble. Even buildings not devastated by last year's "shock and awe" look as if they were. Most nights, military helicopters fly deafening, unlit missions over the city, like huge whirring bats. The "resistance" -- which seem to comprise a good portion of Iraqi society -- drive pickups, wrap their faces in kaffiyehs and see Americans as occupiers whom they have a duty to kill. There are lots of dry, scrubby bushes. There are allegedly some luscious date-palm groves south and west of Baghdad, but given the danger on the roads -- kidnappings; ambushes; and the poor man's land mine, the "improvised explosive device," or IED -- people aren't exactly spending a lot of time there.

"Iraq is like a prison," says Melinda Liu, acting bureau chief of Newsweek. One of the most seasoned war correspondents in Baghdad -- she's got a bullet-wound scar on one leg -- Liu serves as a sort of den mother to the other reporters, reminding them to take their flak jackets when they go on the road. "When things are manageable, you think, 'Hey, maybe it isn't so dangerous after all.' Then when things are rock-bottom terrifying, you think, 'I'll fucking die on the way to the airport.' You can wake up and not know if, by the end of the day, you'll be eating dinner by the pool or dealing with a kidnapping. It's stressful -- even if you're hunkered down in a hotel room."

When I arrive in Baghdad in April, most American journalists are holed up in their rooms, reporting the war by remote: scanning the wires, working their cell phones, watching broadcasts of Al Jazeera. In many cases, they've been reduced to relying on sources available to anyone with an Internet connection. Editorial writers might like to compare Iraq to Vietnam, but reporters on the ground say there's no comparison. In Vietnam, journalists rode Hondas to the front. In Iraq, they rarely venture into the streets. When they do, they hide behind the smoked windows of their armored vehicles, called "hard cars." At least nine Western journalists have been killed since the occupation began, not because they are reporters but simply because they are Westerners. Fear has become an accepted part of life in Baghdad, as inevitable as military roadblocks. While Arabic and European media such as The Guardian and Le Monde manage to cover the war on the ground, American reporters seldom interview actual Iraqis. Instead, they talk to U.S. officials who are every bit as isolated as they are, or rely on local stringers and fixers, several of whom have been killed while working for Americans. "We live in a bubble," grumbles one AP reporter. "If we know one percent of what's going on in Iraq, we're lucky."

Most of the journalism coming out of Baghdad is produced within the fortified compound that contains the Sheraton Ishtar and the Palestine Hotel. Together, the two buildings house the bureaus of Fox, CNN, several major newspapers and wire services, as well as a rotating crew of photographers and independent journalists of all stripes. Towering side by side over the Tigris River, the hotels are a virtual fortress, ringed by coils of razor wire and surrounded by fifteen-foot-high cement barriers known as "blast walls." To enter the compound, one must endure body searches at two checkpoints, navigate a corridor that runs alongside a fortified lane for armored vehicles and answer questions posed by the U.S. troops that patrol the compound day and night. The Sheraton -- the tallest building in Baghdad -- has been struck so often, some journalists call it the Missile Magnet. "More rockets have hit this place than any other building in the city," says Paul Roubicek, an Australian cameraman who has done segments for Fox News.