Channel 4 News cameraman Stuart Webb blogs.
I witnessed the very first shot of the ground war in Iraq back in 2003.
The American military unit I was filming with were equipped with the latest mobile missile launchers and because of this they were given the ‘honour’ of firing the first shot which would set the ground war in motion. The missiles cost one million dollars each. Because they were so expensive the unit had only ever fired a real missile once in training. That night on the Iraq Kuwait border they fired 62.
It was an incredible sight, like watching a mini space shuttle launch. As they roared out the launchers they lit up the night time sky for miles around, leaving no doubt that the war had started. This was shock and awe.
Most of the soldiers in the unit were young and unworldly. Many had never been abroad before and most had never been in combat.
Almost universally they believed the White House spin, honourably as it turned out, because they truly believed that they were there to liberate and help the people of Iraq. They also believed the war would be quick and easy, that Iraqi soldiers would surrender en masse, and that the people of Iraq would welcome them with open arms as liberating heroes.
However the moment the ground war began, preconception and spin collided head-on with reality. The war started with the Hollywood opening of shock and awe but soon nothing went to script.
Iraq troops didn’t surrender en masse, there wasn’t a sweeping advance and people weren’t warmly welcoming the invading forces. The Americans soon found they had a fight on their hands. The British advance was stopped before they even got to their first major objective of Basra, while the Americans immediately faced fierce fighting in Nasiriyah.
The effect of all this on the soldiers was striking. They became uncertain, even a little bewildered. The enthusiasm and energy at the start of the campaign now replaced by doubt and fatigue.
The more the fighting went on, the more they weren’t seeing welcoming people and surrendering troops, the more their whole belief system for why they were there and what they were doing was challenged. It wasn’t supposed to be like this, but it was, and they were beginning to doubt.
It was the soldiers who got the first reality check that the Iraq campaign wasn’t going to follow the imagined script. Their easy victory march north had disappeared. When the unit eventually got into Baghdad we watched as people went on a looting rampage. Iraq’s descent into chaos had started.
After the war I went back and witnessed the start of the insurgency; to witness Iraq’s descent into a kind of hell.
It all began with the bombing of the Jordanian embassy. I filmed as they put out the flames and pulled out the bodies. I was there too for the Red Cross and UN bombings, and for so many other bombings that I lost count.
I lost count of the times I rushed out of bed because the hotel had been hit again in a dawn rocket attack; lost count of the charred bodies, the twisted wreckage, bomb craters and flames. And just when you thought it couldn’t get any worse the video beheadings and mass murders started. Iraq became a place of fear and terror.
Today the situation is calmer, but still not calm, and nothing is certain.
This week’s bombing shows Iraq still has a long way to go, and the country could even slide back into the chaos and terror once all American forces leave. It’s all a long way from George W Bush’s assertion of “mission accomplished”.