A journey into the epicenter of the Sadr standoff

Technically speaking, what we were about to do was more than risky. It was foolish. But we told ourselves that it was a risk for a cause.

Thursday, several journalists and I began organizing a delegation to enter the Imam Ali Shrine in Najaf.

We had two goals: First, to seek what may be the final comments of the top leadership of Moqtada al-Sadr's Shiite militia, the Mahdi Army, who were taking shelter in the holy site. Second, we wanted to help two colleagues, freelance photographer Thorne Anderson and Salon.com correspondent Phillip Robertson, get out of the shrine after they had spent a harrowing three days at the epicenter of this armed showdown. [Editor's note: In the original version, Anderson's and Robertson's names were both misspelled, and Robertson was misidentified as a freelance reporter.]

Between us and the shrine were two US military checkpoints, countless snipers, and hundreds of Mahdi Army fighters who had already committed themselves to die for their cause.

For a brief period on Wednesday afternoon, it appeared that a peaceful resolution might be achieved. Representatives of the National Conference assembled in Baghdad read a letter from Mr. Sadr saying that he had agreed to the government's conditions, namely to put down their weapons, leave the shrine, and become a mainstream political movement. But hours later, fighting erupted here again. And the Iraqi government announced that there would be no more peace negotiations. Ominously, the Iraqi minister of defense announced that the final assault would begin within hours.

At his press conference, Minister of State Qasim Daud made it clear that there would be no new peace talks, and in fact, added more conditions for Mr. Sadr to meet. As journalists, we usually scribble our notes and file our stories and then head to lunch. But this time it was personal. We had friends inside, who were asking us via satellite phone for help. We decided to attempt a rescue mission. We alerted the Iraqi government, the US military, and the Mahdi Army and ask them not to fire on us; we were planning to go to the shrine.

"You realize that what you are doing is risky," said a US Army major, whose last name was Robertson. "That shrine might not be around much longer." We assured him that we did, and made our way back to the hotel to set up our convoy.

Organizing journalists is like herding cats. We are trained to question authority, and we proceeded to spend one another, making sure the plan was sound (it wasn't) and that there would be guarantees of our safety (there weren't any.) But a half-hour after our decided time of departure, the Monitor's driver Adnan revved up his car. We had formed a convoy of about 18 cars full of journalists, most of them Arab, a few of them British, and a tiny minority of Americans.

Somehow our car took the lead. There were no other contenders. We pulled a white rag out of the trunk and crawled along at 5 m.p.h., toward the first US Army checkpoint. The streets were vacant, the buildings and shops pocked full of shell holes. The streets were covered with shattered glass and fragments of heavy machine gun and mortar rounds. Five of us, packed into the car, said silent prayers.

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