Reporters' Log: War in Iraq

Reporters' Log: War in Iraq

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The BBC's unrivalled team of correspondents is bringing you news from the Gulf and reaction from around the world. On this page BBC News Online logs their impressions and personal experiences as they watch events unfold.

Most recent postings are at the top.

Wednesday, 9 April

Caversham, Reading :: Mike Baker :: 0850GMT

We know most of the pan-Arab services seem to be saying there seems to be little regime control in Baghdad.

There is still no clarity about what has happened to Saddam Hussein but one intriguing report from an Iranian television station is quoting its correspondent there who in turn is quoting eyewitnesses saying that Saddam had left this restaurant that was bombed yesterday a few minutes before it was actually hit, but we still don't know where he is and whether or not he survived this.

There is real anger in the Arab media about attacks which hit journalists yesterday.

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Baghdad :: Andrew Gilligan :: 0840GMT

In many parts of Baghdad the outcome George Bush and Tony Blair have been hoping for. Jubilant crowds chanting pro-American and anti-Saddam slogans have appeared on the streets.

Flowers have been thrown at US tanks and even where there are no Americans to be seen, in the Shia suburbs to the north, people have clearly decided the regime is finished.

Spontaneous demonstrations as well as looting and disorder have broken out. Saddam pictures are being torn up and there seem no Iraqi forces to stop it.

Our own government minders never turned up for work this morning, another part of the regime that has simply vanished.

It may not all be over, some resistance may go on and with the breakdown of law and order possibly to come, the people of Baghdad may be entering dangerous times but this does appear to be much closer to the end.

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Basra :: Hilary Andersson :: 0740GMT

There are still sporadic threats of attacks by irregular forces around southern Iraq. In the city of Basra itself things are fairly under control militarily.

The British military has appointed an Iraqi civilian administrator and asked him to form a local government committee representing all the tribes in the area.

They want it to be seen that Iraqi's will soon be running their own affairs but it's a complicated business. This is a huge city and at the moment things are pretty chaotic, with the looting going on, there isn't a police force operating so there's a huge amount of work to be done.

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Qatar, CentCom :: Jonathan Marcus :: 0730GMT

All the indications are that the decisive moment in this campaign is at hand.

Over the next twenty four hours, the Americans are set to double the brigade size force that they already have deep inside the Iraqi capital.

US marines are already pushing along the Saddam canal to the north of Baghdad.

The plan is to advance along both banks from the north west and the south east. This will take the marines close to a predominantly Shi'ite area of the city where there may be little love lost for Saddam Hussein's regime.

There is a sense here - I put it no stronger than that - that far from the regime's grip gradually weakening there may simply be no centralised command to destroy.

What you have is a patchwork of individual small units and groups of fighters who may continue to resist. But the Iraqi regime in an organised sense may simply be no more.

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Basra :: Tim Franks :: 0715GMT

Coalition forces say that they are planning to hold a regional conference very soon to establish political leadership for the whole of southern Iraq.

Speaking exclusively to the BBC, the commander in charge of all British forces in the region, Major General Robin Brims, said that the delegates would be drawn from local leadership committees across the region and military sources said that it may also include leading figures from the Iraqi opposition abroad.

In a sign of confidence that the emerging political leadership is to be trusted, the general said that he himself may not even be present at this conference which is due to be held very soon.

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Central Iraq :: Andrew North :: 0655GMT

It seems around here that there is really no sign of resistance now. The other significant development is that the US marine unit that I'm with has taken control of an armoured division headquarters in eastern Iraq, near the Iranian border.

They did this without a fight, without firing a shot - it appears that the Iraqi soldiers in the unit simply melted away, and this was a division that was probably up to 15,000 strong.

They had been using psychological operations to try to persuade these soldiers to give up and it does appear to have worked.

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Basra :: Clive Myrie :: 0612GMT

It seems a little more stable here than it was yesterday.

The scenes that we saw were pretty horrific - with shops, hotels, restaurants being looted and systematically burned.

This went on late into the night and we understand the situation is a little bit easier today - but I think British forces are expecting more of the same, and the question is - will they step in and do anything about it?

They really don't want to get embroiled in trying to police this city. It is a huge place - 1.5 million people. They really don't want to be chasing looters down back alleys.

The British troops paramount role is to secure the city and to deal with any remnants of Iraqi forces, Iraqi paramilitaries and Fedayeen fighters who might still be around.

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Baghdad :: Rageh Omaar :: 0610GMT

It's been one of the quietest nights in the whole of this war. There has been very sporadic gunfire but no heavy artillery, no sound of warplanes.

It's eerily quiet here, it's a bizarre sort of atmosphere, as if the whole city is in some sort of strange limbo waiting to see what the Americans do next.

The mood among the journalists here is a bit stunned. We're all safe, we've all had a safe and quiet night. There was reflection last night and concern for our colleagues who are in hospital receiving attention.

There's concern for the journalists at the Al-Jazeera and Abu Dhabi's offices. There are still a large number of people in a basement at the headquarters of Abu Dhabi Television and noone has been able to get through to them.

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US CentCom, Doha :: Peter Hunt :: 0535GMT

This whole talk about Saddam Husein - is he alive or is he dead - is quite fascinating because on one level, people here in Doha aren't that fussed about it .

What they are happy about is that we are talking about it, it is being discussed, and it adds, they would argue, to the whole destabilising effect.

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Amarah, Iraq :: David Loyn :: 0530GMT

American marines are consolidating positions in eastern Iraq taken without resistance on Tuesday. A force of five-hundred or so US marines newly arrived in Iraq made easy progress from positions in the centre of the country towards the town of Amarah in the east.

They are now close to being able to link up with British troops coming from Basra in the south, opening an eastern supply corridor to Baghdad.

Iraqi forces in this region appear to have melted away. At an abandoned airbase where we have spent the night, gas masks and other equipment to protect against a chemical attack litter the ground.

A substantial number of damaged Iraqi armoured vehicles show the effects of relentless air campaigns over the last three weeks.

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Baghdad.:: Andrew Gilligan :: 0520GMT

It's been a relatively quiet night. We heard a certain amount of machine gun and mortar fire about an hour ago but it's all gone quiet now.

We've heard very few aircraft and relatively few bombs overnight which suggests to me, either that the Americans haven't done a great deal or that there has been less resistance.

The Americans control many important strategic locations on the west bank of the Tigris, that's where mist of the government Ministries and palaces are. On the east their control is much more limited.

There are a lot of problems with the water supply in the city and that's really very serious because very soon people will start dying from disease and thirst caused by lack of water.

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Washington D. C.:: Ian Pannell :: 0420GMT

The US administration - and this dates from the Clinton administration - has had a great deal of involvement with Iraqi opposition groups, in particular with the Iraqi National Congress headed by Ahmed Chalabi. Now the history of that is there are people in the administration who have effectively gone off Mr Chalabi and don't feel he is the right person to represent the exile groups and in actual fact the opposition groups shouldn't have too much involvement.

The State Department isn't alone on this. Elements in the CIA and other key administration figures also feel that. Interestingly, somebody - it's one of those unnamed officials - has been briefing the press here on a CIA document which has been presented to members of congress which casts doubt on the Iraqi people's willingness to accept these exile groups forming a significant part in any new government.

However, certainly Donald Rumsfeld and even more so his deputy Paul Wolfowitz, are very close to these kinds of groups, in particular the Iraqi National Congress, and seem to have a much greater view of their role in any future interim authority.

It is interesting to note that Mr Chalabi who was operating in northern Iraq has been flown down by the US military to southern Iraq in and around the Basra area and is believed to be operating there.

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Qatar, CentCom:: Dominic Hughes :: 0345GMT

Regarding the journalists who have died over the last 24 hours, coalition forces point out that they repeatedly warned journalists that Baghdad would be an extremely dangerous place to be if the coalition engaged the regime in combat.

So on the one hand they make these statements of regret which I think you have to take at face value as genuine but they are also saying in some way: "We told you so."

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London:: Liz Rowley :: 0130GMT

The River Tigris meanders through Baghdad roughly from north to south. It is the heart and soul of the city with 11 bridges crossing it. But, after Tuesday's fighting along its banks, it has now become a dividing line separating Iraqi-held and American-held territory.

The Americans control a large enclave on the West Bank. That's the administrative area of the city where some of the most important symbols of Saddam Hussein's power are located - lavish presidential palaces, key government ministries and Baath Party headquarters.

The East of the city is still in Iraqi hands. That's the commercial centre of Baghdad, the old part of the city and where most people live.

Inevitably, there have been civilian casualties but it's impossible to say how many.

The International Committee of the Red Cross says it is concerned about the situation in Baghdad's hospitals where doctors say they are being overwhelmed by the number of casualties.

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Qatar, CentCom:: Dominic Hughes :: 0110GMT

Militarily what we're seeing is the isolation of Baghdad. A spokesman here said to me a short time that we will continue to penetrate and probe the defences in Baghdad.

People here still say we expect tough fighting days ahead - they've had this line consistently for the past 72 hours. No one believes the Iraqis have just rolled over and gone away.

But you get the impression that they are surprised at how poorly organised the defence of Baghdad has been as a whole. There is no one, it seems, organising a grand defence of Baghdad.

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