Today, Burns is careful to say that many of the reporters he thought little of initially have since done outstanding work during the war -- but he stands by his comments.

"You would have a TV reporter on camera acting as if he were in Brisbane, not Baghdad. And just off camera would be a government minder keeping a close eye. People would die if they said the wrong thing on air. In fact, if anyone in Baghdad made contact with an American journalist and did not disclose it, they risked death." But that climate of fear was rarely alluded to in news reports.

In Embedded, Burns says some Western journalists wined and dined government officials at expensive restaurants. Others plied the director of Iraq's ministry of information with $600 mobile phones for family members. In one case, a rival reporter, trying to ingratiate himself with government officials, actually contrasted Burns's more barbed coverage with his own, "to show what a good boy he was, compared to this enemy of the state.

"The argument was made that, above all, journalists need to stay in the game. You have to make sure your visa is renewed. You need a certain degree of access to the regime to do your job. Compromises have to be made at times. I understand this point of view, but you do not do this at the cost of fundamental truth."

Burns vividly recalls one press conference shortly before the war began. The information minister took note of Burns's presence, calling him "the most dangerous man in Iraq." "It was said in a mocking way. It was a dark and sinister joke. I knew what he was saying. 'Just wait until we have no reason to leave you alone.' It didn't take a great deal of bravery for me to report on the regime as I did. I wore a suit of armour as a correspondent for the New York Times."

A few days after U.S. and British forces and their allies began their assault, Burns heard from a source of his that the Ministry of Information building was targeted for destruction by the American military. He had no love for the minister himself, but worried about janitors, night clerks and other ordinary Iraqis who might be killed in such an attack. He informed the minister and even drove to the building itself to warn its occupants of the planned strike.

The attack was soon carried out, with minimal casualties. Shortly after, Burns heard a knock on his hotel room door. Armed men burst into his room, declaring that Burns must be a CIA official to have had such inside knowledge. He had better cooperate with them or he would never be seen again.

Burns erupted. If anything happened to him, their necks would be in nooses once the Americans and their allies took control of Baghdad, Burns thundered. The New York Times was the world's most powerful newspaper and the death of a reporter would not be treated lightly. It was largely a bluff, he confides. The men departed, after helping themselves to his money and equipment. Burns went into hiding for ten days until he believed it was safe to re-emerge.

He took a quick break from his duties in Iraq to treat a minor heart ailment -- caused in part by the 25 cups of tea he was drinking daily, according to the New York Observer -- returning to resume his work in Baghdad.

Burns remembers watching with fellow reporters as the war began and the first cruise missiles rained down on the Republican Palace. "The journalists who were with me were shouting for joy. I had never seen anything like that before." Whatever one thought of the rationale behind the attack, no one could dispute that Iraqis deserved a chance at a future without a bloodthirsty despot at the helm of their country.

"I was very much a believer that if Saddam could be deposed with a minimal level of violence, the people of Iraq would enormously benefit from that," Burns says. "My belief was not based at all on the weapons of mass destruction argument. It was absolutely a case of terror, in my eyes. I believe the UN needs to take its charter seriously. It has a responsibility to end the barbarism that is still so often a fact of international life."

Saddam Hussein in his first courtroom appearance following his capture.
Abaca Press (2004) all reight reserved / CPimages.ca

Unfortunately, poor planning by the U.S. proved to be disastrous once they actually toppled Saddam. "The elation I felt for Iraqis dissipated within hours," Burns says. "There was a complete failure to halt the looting and the destruction of infrastructure. American troops were acting as traffic cops for looters as hospitals and museums were raided."

Seven thousand U.S. troops took over the responsibilities of 130,000 Iraqi soldiers and police officers who were disarmed and sent home. Chaos ensued."Americans have found themselves very quickly without allies. There was fury over the looting, fury over the failure to do anything about rebuilding Iraq. Promises made a year ago to the Iraqi people have yet to be fulfilled." The U.S., Burns believes, "went in too light, too fast, and too unschooled in the ways of the Middle East."

He doesn't see any happy endings in Iraq for a long time to come. Fighting will go on as Saddam diehards, Sunni Muslims hotly opposed to rule by the majority Shia Muslim community, nationalists outraged by the occupation, and fundamentalists "absolutely unreconciled to the kind of secular society imagined by the Americans" continue to oppose U.S. forces and their allies, often with deadly effectiveness.

But the biggest obstacle to creating a workable new government structure might lie with ordinary Iraqis who are hesitant to play their role in establishing such a system. "I don't think anyone counted on how dysfunctional a society Iraq was, the result of decades of intense psychological trauma. There is a tremendous unwillingness to step up and take risks. The lesson they learned from Saddam was to keep the lowest profile possible and stay out of the way of the gunfire," Burns reports.

Whatever happens next, Burns wants to cover it. His insurance company might wish he saw things differently. "I've spent a great deal of my career in places of great risk, but I've never seen anything quite so hazardous and difficult as Iraq is today."

Burns lost friends during the bomb attacks by Iraqi militants on the United Nations compound and the Iraqi headquarters of the International Committee of the Red Cross. "Walking through the rubble of those two buildings, the message was clear. There will be no exemptions. All foreigners are at risk. At one point, the Red Cross was feeding about 75% of the people here and they weren't spared."

Now overseeing a staff of dozens of reporters, photographers and others working for the Times in Baghdad, Burns admits he has become considerably more cautious. One of his journalists was offered safe passage by acquaintances into the embattled city of Fallujah. Burns thought it was too risky and said no. "I knew what she was thinking. It was evident from my own career that I had not always been so precise in measuring risks." As a bureau chief, though, his first task is to try to keep all Times staffers alive.

Still, Burns warrants, "There is no point in the New York Times being in Baghdad if we stay inside the compound all day long."

Earlier this year, Burns himself, along with some colleagues and bodyguards, was kidnapped, blindfolded and held at gunpoint for several hours. Thanks, possibly, to the intercession of an influential imam alerted to the situation by a New Yorker reporter, Burns and the others were released.

It wasn't Burns's first close call. In Afghanistan, he and a photographer were standing in a field when a Soviet attack helicopter swooped down on them, the Russian soldiers mistaking the camera lens for a missile launcher. Thankfully, their aim was a little off. Burns watched as his car was demolished before the Russians realized their mistake.

In recent years, Burns has been offered safer jobs. He turned down the chance to be his newspaper's White House correspondent. He said no thanks to proposed editorial positions. "I don't want to be an editor. I want to be a reporter," he explains.

Do loved ones ever try to persuade him to step away from the danger?

"I've had that voice inside my own head," Burns acknowledges. "What I hear most often from my family and friends is, 'If you still love it and you can still do it competently, why change it?'

"The only thing worse than being in Baghdad would be not being in Baghdad," he declares. "Whoever succeeded me would have the best job in the world for a journalist. I know plenty of people who would be happy to be in my shoes."