The occupation of Iraq was undertaken with great fanfare. Vice President Dick Cheney was the spirit behind this operation, which was implemented by Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. The complete misreading of the public mood in Iraq, where I was present, was replicated in every detail in the Iran expedition begun on 28 February 2026. In Iraq in 2003, Cheney and Rumsfeld had expected an uprising to topple the regime and embrace the Americans as liberators. What I was witness to in Baghdad was quite the opposite of what Cheney had boasted.
At the time, Yaqub (S.Y. Quraishi) had taken over as the Director General of Doordarshan; Sushma Swaraj, the information and broadcasting minister, and Quraishi both accepted my argument. This is where my friend, Rajan Abhyankar, Secretary in the MEA, came in handy and helped secure the necessary clearance. For the first time in the history of Indian journalism, Worldview India posted camera units and reporters in Baghdad, Najaf, Istanbul, Jerusalem, Amman and Lebanon. Some of these reporters happened to be in Baghdad’s Palestine Hotel, witnesses to the real story, the one the world wasn’t supposed to know.
