A view of the press centre

The bombing of Iraq may be the top international story right now, but most of it is being reported from the cramped corners and roof of B...

The bombing of Iraq may be the top international story right now, but most of it is being reported from the cramped corners and roof of Baghdad’s press centre. And as the world’s media pours in — at last count there were more than 100 journalists in the capital — so the restrictions on their movement have tightened, especially during the missile strikes themselves.

The television pictures of the bombings are taken mostly from the press centre roof, while the written reports are typed into small laptops in the centre’s minuscule and overflowing offices. Security at the entrance to the press centre, housed within the information ministry, is tight. Armed guards, some seemingly still in their teenage years, discourage the flouting of strictly regulated walkabouts. But their attitude is more friendly than threatening and they are a mandatory feature of any government building here. The flow of information is strictly controlled, with compulsory Iraqi `guides’ for outside visits to places other than the UnitedNations or talks with foreign diplomats. The information ministry regularly organises convoys of journalists and their minders to the shells of bombed-out buildings.

An occasional press conference, in the centre, by high-ranking Iraqi officials adds names to what would otherwise be sourceless or anonymous stories. These restrictions “are normal given these particular circumstances,” one ministry official at the centre said, requesting traditional anonymity.

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They are justified “by security reasons, but also to stop information leaks which the enemy could use in their attacks,” he said. Some have managed to grasp a better deal. Both CNN, the largest team here with some 11 journalists, and Qatar’s Al-Jazirah satellite channel are allowed to transmit direct footage of the bombings from several areas within Baghdad.

For the rest of the media pack, they have become an invaluable source of colour in their own stories as their usual sources dry up. A lone TV sits in the centre of the offices, while a crowdof journalists gather round. It is usually set to the Western media channels. Of the three Iraqi TV channels and four radio stations, only state TV and Radio Baghdad continue to transmit. The others were knocked-out in the first deadly cruise missile attack.

The Iraqi press, normally the prime source of official information, has remained mostly mute on the bombings and turned their vitriol on the bombers. They provide few details of the attacks outside Baghdad, or even within the capital itself. But communicating what information there is can be a struggle. Although Iraq’s international telephone lines were re-established last summer, most reporters prefer to rely on often unreliable satellite-based phones, faxes and computers.

The office floors are a tangle of wires and the perimeter of the press centre is a wall of satellite dishes from a few centimetres to several metres across. In a country apparently committed to remaining calm in the face of US and British military action, the press centre isprobably the most chaotic and easily excitable place in Baghdad.