Pitching in

This post is a couple of days overdue. I'm writing from Baghdad, where I'll be doing a one-month stint in our Iraq bureau. My job is basically to help our fulltime bureau chief with the daily news report from Baghdad and contribute other feature stories from time to time. Reporters from throughout the company have come to Iraq since the invasion to do reporting stints; this is my first time here.

I arrived on Tuesday from Amman, Jordan, the starting point for most trips into Iraq. There you can get a visa and a couple of good nights' sleep before heading into the hot zone. From Amman there are daily flights to Baghdad -- and bless the folks at Royal Jordanian Airlines, they try to make it seem like the most normal thing in the world, right down to the crappy airline breakfast and the cheery welcome announcement from the flight attendant: "We thank you for flying with us and wish you a pleasant stay in Baghdad..."

Along with several Western media outlets, we have an office in a hotel complex less than a mile outside the "Green Zone" -- the fortress-like section of Baghdad that houses U.S. and Iraqi government offices. The drive from the airport to the hotel was only a couple of miles, but it took a half-hour as our two-car convoy (me and our fulltime security consultant up front in an armored early-model Mercedes, with a chase car in tow) got stuck in Baghdad's version of traffic jams.

Basically these occur at the numerous military checkpoints, or when convoys of military vehicles, many belonging to private security companies, appear on the roads. As these convoys are popular targets for insurgents, the other drivers tend to pull over or slow down to let them pass. We did this a few times. The danger hit home when Paul, our security adviser, pointed out a small roadside bomb that had exploded three days earlier and shattered the concrete median.

I've spent most of my first few days here following the daily news developments (Wednesday and Thursday were particularly brutal days, even by Iraqi standards) and getting to know our brave and talented Iraqi staff. About a dozen people work fulltime in the bureau with us, including five reporters, a handful of drivers, a cook and an irreplaceable office manager. It's well known by now that most of the newsgathering in Iraq for Western newspapers is done by Iraqi staffers, who sometimes risk their lives to get information and interviews in parts of the city that are off-limits to foreigners.

Many of our staffers write on a blog called "Inside Iraq" -- which I highly recommend because while many Western journalists blog about their experiences reporting in Iraq, almost nowhere else can you read the unvarnished views of the Iraqis themselves.

I realize that, for most people, what's happening in Iraq has become like white noise. I used to follow this story closely, but lately, if I had work to do, I rarely read past the headlines from Baghdad, which seem increasingly depressing. But in just a couple of days here, I've already become fascinated by this story all over again, and I'm looking forward to diving into it -- to the extent that I can. I'm not sure what the next few weeks will bring, but I'll try to post regularly and keep you all updated.