Last weekend, The Sunday Times Magazine published excellent reports by Jeremy Clarkson and AA Gill of their visits to war-torn Iraq.
The picture they draw is one of ubiquitous devestation, where insurgents lie in wait with rocket-propelled grenades and anti-aircraft missiles, and you risk being beheaded in front of a webcam if you leave the safety of the Army compounds. Iraq is not the cosy, revolutionised land Blair and Bush would have us believe, but a guerilla-infested apocolypse where 25 serious incidents take place in Baghdad a day. There are also 350 roadside bombs and 20 car bombs detonated every week in Iraq, and one American killed every eight hours. Once every four hours, one of them has a limb blown off.
The intrepid wannabe war reporters even had to travel by car along the road between Baghdad airport and the Green Zone - which is said to be the most dangerous in the world. Sorry Newsbloggers but I'm just not prepared to do it.
During their brief stay, Clarkson and Gill were fired at in a helicoptor, mortored twice and raked with fire from a DShK 12.7 machine gun.
The Americans live in Saddam's former palaces and the Brits in his private brothel, 'Maud House'. As Gill points out, "So who's the daddy and who's the Yankie bitch?"
Saddam's $2billion underground nuclear bunker is at the heart of the Green Zone. It was the first target of the conflict, and was barely damaged. Built by the Swiss and Germans, the lavishly designed bunker is now looted and smashed, with blood on the walls and bullet holes throughout.
The British troops remain in remarkably good spirits, many seeing it as a challenge they must simply get on with. Unlike the dry, typically introspective American soldiers they have learned to cope by using humour: all the streets at their base have been affectionately named after Monopoly board creations, for example. Also unlike their American counterparts, the Brits can be trusted with two beers a day.
Disgustingly, as Clarkson points out, our troops are given just twenty minutes a week to speak to their loved ones back home, while a murderer gets thirty minutes. The men often carry out sixteen hour shifts and must sleep in twelve man tents with no air conditioning - that is reserved for the base's sniffer dogs.
Saddam was undoubtably an evil dictator; but surely this kind of anarchy is of our doing.
See www.timesonline.co.uk for the full reports.