War reporter in limbo

Warren Richey plays the waiting game in Kuwait as the war goes on without him. Part 1: April 7-23

I got my orders to cover the war in Iraq on a Tuesday afternoon in Washington, D.C.

"Get to Kuwait as fast as you can and embed with American troops."

Oh, and by the way, my editor might have mentioned in passing, the Kuwaitis have stopped issuing visas to journalists and most flights into the Persian Gulf region have been canceled because it is a war zone.

That's how my adventure in Iraq began, as a kind of impossible challenge. The date was April 1. April Fool's Day. The war in Iraq was already two weeks old, and US forces were closing in on Baghdad.

But never underestimate the power of prayer and a company credit card. By Friday, I had a visa to Kuwait. And the next day I was on a plane headed for combat.

What I didn't know until I arrived in the Middle East was that the only all-out warfare I would see during this assignment would involve my own bureaucratic battles with US military public affairs officers.

At times, they seemed determined to ensure that I experience virtually the entire combat phase of the war in the Hilton Hotel in Kuwait City. Needless to say, most of the newsworthy action in the Pentagon's Operation Iraqi Freedom was occurring much farther to the north, in Iraq.

I spent 2-1/2 weeks with my bags packed and ready to go at a moment's notice to hook up with US forces in Iraq. That's 17 days in a five-star hotel with a great view of a crude-oil loading dock and a TV set tuned to constant war coverage. Every day a different oil tanker arrived and departed. Every day the possibility again arose of actually being permitted to do what I came halfway around the world to do - interview US soldiers and cover the war from their perspective. Several times every day I was reassured: "We're working on it."

In the newspaper business, 17 days is an eternity. Frequently, history is written in less time. The Russian Revolution in 1917 took only 10 days. And the first Gulf War was over in a matter of hours.

As if such time constraints weren't bad enough, I kept imagining my 14-year-old son later asking what I had covered during the war in Iraq. "I pretty much covered the breakfast buffet at the Hilton, son," would be my completely honest reply. "Really good waffles. And fresh-squeezed orange juice."

Other reporters were regularly being placed with US forces, including a TV news crew from Turkey sent out with the 4th Infantry Division as it left Kuwait. This was an interesting development because the 4th ID was supposed to enter Iraq through Turkey, but the Turkish government had refused to grant access.

I mention this not to suggest that the Turkish reporters should be denied access to the big news story, but merely to point out that reporters from countries unhelpful to the US were receiving better treatment from US military public affairs officers than an American reporter. There were even a handful of German and French reporters already out there.

But not me.

Another tanker arrives to take on crude. Another day of waffles, orange juice, and nonstop televised war coverage.

There are two theories explaining my experience with military public affairs officers.

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