Life as a war correspondent

Renowned for his reporting of the Iraq and Afghan wars, BBC News correspondent Rageh Omaar talks to Rabis M. about journalism, his experience in Baghdad and his debut book Revolution Day

Someone once asked Rageh Omaar if it's necessary to do a journalism course to become a journalist. Omaar replied, "I don't want young people to think this is the only route. Nowadays there are numerous media and journalism courses - in fact hundreds more than when I started my career 12 years ago.

"But there are many other things that are important. Languages, for example. I think that if one is able to show a knowledge of other cultures, regions, and communicate with people in their own language it gives them a head start.

"Also, editors also take note of practical papers and radio stations. This shows that you have at least gained a practical knowledge of the day-to-day essentials of journalism: getting interviews, writing them concisely and clearly and meeting deadlines."

Omaar never went to any journalism school. Educated at Cheltenham Boys College, he later did his BA Honours in Modern History from Oxford University in 1990. The same year he started his journalistic career as a stringer in Ethiopia.

In September 1996, he undertook a three-month sabbatical at the University of Jordan where he studied Arabic. He moved on to Amman as correspondent in March 1997.

The youngest of four children, he was born in Mogadishu, Somalia, on July 19, 1967. He grew up in a family whose members lived and worked in different parts of the world, where relatives discussed issues from Khomeini's Revolution in Iran to the wars between Pakistan and India.

Self-taught journalist

"I didn't do journalism when I was at university because I didn't like the people who did it. They seemed self-obsesssed at such a young age. So when I went for interviews after university with newspapers and broadcast organisations, they said, I should either do a journalism course or go somewhere exciting and news-worthy to freelance.

"I couldn't stand going back into a classroom so I decided to go and freelance where the Mengistu regime had just been overthrown," says Omaar.

Like any other profession there are several perks and drawbacks being a foreign correspondent. Omaar believes it's a privilege because journalists often boast their job is about writing the first draft of history or being an eyewitness to history with a front row seat in some of the most important moments of our times. But one which carries a lot of responsibilities.

He says, "There are obviously some disadvantges. The dangers, the hardship and worry that families and loved ones go through when you are away for long in places where you could be killed or wounded.

"The risks and pressures that even your colleagues back at office cannot understand. However, the rewards far outweigh the disdvantages. This is why so many journalists still continue to go to places like Iraq, even though many colleagues have been killed there."

Iraq happens to be his favourite posting, a place he fell in love the moment he was posted there in 1997. But how does he describe it pre and post war?

"I have seen the country and its people go through many crisis. UN sanctions, Saddam Hussain's tyranny, the bombardment throughout the late 1990s, the isolation of its people and the ignorance of its culture.

"Saddam killed, tortured, imprisoned and exiled tens of thousands of people. But the majority of people in the dictatorship lived in cities that were stable and secure.

Today, no inch of Iraq is stable or secure for the ordinary Iraqis, British or American soldiers. The sense of lawlessness, anarchy and violence is shocking and total. Iraq is certainly better off without Saddam, as one British newspaper colleague, Patrick Cockburn who has been travelling to Iraq for 25 years, puts it. Saddam should not have been a hard act to follow," he explains.

Although Omaar's Iraq reporting has been praised, it was his work in Afghanistan that brought him into the limelight and won him applause. He tells me, "Afghanistan was difficult but also interesting. One of the most amazing things was that even though it wasn't an Arab country, being able to speak Arabic was an advantage.

"It helped me in the most difficult circumstances especially once when a young Taliban said he was going to shoot me and the BBC cameraman Fred Scott. Because all the Taliban fighters had been to madrassas (Islamic religious schools) they had a knowledge of classical Arabic."

Omaar's work has also come under criticism from time to time. He has been attacked by liberal and right wing journalists in the UK, by the Iraqi and British governments and others.

Commenting on his worst and best experiences as a journalist, Omaar says, "It was seeing injuries to civilians in the Al Kindi and Al Yarmouk hospitals in Baghdad, also witnessing colleagues being killed and wounded by American troops when they bombed the offices of Al Jazeera, Abu Dhabi TV and the Palestine Hotel."

Best experience

There have been lots of rewarding moments for Rageh Omaar. "My best experience is coming home after each assignment," he says.

Although his reporting on Iraq was acclaimed, there was criticism as well, for the fact that he showed extreme love and loyalty towards Iraq. A lot of people said he became an Iraqi citizen. However, there are no apologies from his side.

As he puts it, "I had only one bias during the war. I was biased in favour of the ordinary Iraqi's plight. I am proud of it and I make no apologies."

He adds, "I made a judgement about what I saw and heard and my reports were balanced and direct. I did not make a judgement about things before I saw or heard them."

No matter how courageous journalists are and decide to take up risky jobs of reporting from war zones, their families have to suffer and cope with the consequences.

Despite the dangers of having been in Iraq and Kabul, Omaar's family had to go through worse situations. During the Iraq war he would often phone in the evenings from Baghdad and say things are okay.

But his wife and mother would watch the evening news of the city being blown to pieces and imagine the scenario. Says Omaar, "I was able to live the reality and they only saw the worst moments. In this sense journalism is a selfish business."

Though Omaar would like to keep his family life private, he reveals, "My wife works in mental health. She has lived in the Middle East, but at the moment she is taking care of our two young children."

After a few months when the Iraq war was over, Omaar returned to the UK and released his debut book Revolution Day.

"At first I couldn't face the idea of writing a book. I was emotionally exhausted. But after six years of reporting from Iraq I realised that the world I had known had gone forever and I should write down my impressions of those years."

Regime change

"Revolution Day was one of the main days of celebration by the Ba'ath Party in Iraq under Saddam. It celebrated the party's rise to power. The invasion of Iraq was about "regime change" - the overthrow of the Ba'ath Party. On the last Revolution Day, Saddam made a speech saying the allied forces wouldn't defeat him this time.

"Of course, the war got rid of him but not Ba'athism, destroying Saddam but not Saddamism. This is why I chose the title because the invasion was a hollow victory. Saddam was overthrown but the foundat