When the so-called "shock and awe" U.S. missile strikes started in Baghdad 20 years ago this week, I was among a small group of Western reporters watching from hotel balconies along the Tigris River. Explosions, smoke and debris erupted from government buildings in what would soon become the Green Zone. Reports came in of U.S. troops entering the country from the south. We ventured out with government minders, then increasingly on our own, to bomb sites and hospitals treating the wounded.
We worried for our own safety, doing our work with anxious, rumor-fueled uncertainty about whether we'd be made "human shields" or detained. Four of our colleagues were jailed by Iraqi authorities a few days after the invasion began and held for a week while we appealed to officials for their release. And we counted on U.S. forces knowing our two hotels, though we saw soon enough that, tragically, not all of them did.
