General David Petraeus clapped Sheik Abdul-Sattar al-Rishawi on the shoulder and talked enthusiastically about their new project. "It's men like this who are going to make Iraq work," he said, looking back towards my camera with the confidence of a king.

It was March last year. By September Rishawi, instigator of the "Anbar Awakening", was dead. What he had given to the Americans, however, was the vital Sunni co-operation that [...]

It's hard to describe the noise when a whole cabinet of crockery is emptied on to the floor. Even harder not to shout in indignation when the American soldier who intentionally tipped it forward, until the plates and dishes slid smashing to the floor, says without regret, "Whoops!" and crunches over the shards past the distraught owner. "Cordon and search" they call looking for Sunni insurgents and their arms and [...]

There is that moment when the snackering sound of a rifle being cocked makes you pay attention. And three camouflage-uniformed members of the new Iraqi National Police had just cocked their AK assault rifles. The half-dozen grey-patterned US soldiers standing protectively in front of the man in the grey shirt were now paying attention. Later, they said they thought they were about to get into what the US military calls [...]

On the highest part of the building's roof, so close to the edge, it looked a very long way down to the sodium glare below. It seemed the parliament building actually trembled as tens of thousands of protesters roared below. The shout of "Geor-gi, Geor-gi . . ." rippled in unseen circles from the speaker on the great steps to where the crowd frayed into the darkness in the park [...]

Baghdad's traffic was ever an entertaining experience. If a traffic jam took up the full three lanes, it was not unknown for a driver to do a U-turn and then reverse to his destination against the oncoming traffic. Nowadays, almost every morning except Fridays, Baghdad drivers swelter in hooting, crawling gridlock around Sadoun Street and the bridges across the Tigris.

The reason is simple: the Americans, in their terror of [...]

The somnambulant address in the afternoon heat of the press conference broke off. The roar of a very big explosion assaulted the small audience of journalists and cameramen and the lights went out. A few people screamed. Someone started shouting: "Stay where you are! Stay where you are . . ."

In the dim daylight filtering through the pall of dust, the United Nations headquarters in Baghdad was a scene [...]

It is hard to hold the camera steady when a Merkava tank lets rip with a high-explosive round. In a small street of stone buildings, the shock wave takes the lens and, try as you might, in an instant it jerks upward. It was equally hard to keep a rifle steady when the fear and adrenalin of being dropped into a firefight was pumping through the blood stream. The kick [...]

The Taliban fighter was lying on the ground beside the tank, his breathing sharp and shallow. Flies festooned his pantaloons where blood from his wounds caked the cheap grey cloth. The man's face was a gaunt mask edged by black Jesus hair and a scraggly goatee. He was one of four prisoners. Later, I learnt his name was Hares.

"We captured them yesterday when they were trying to escape," said [...]

It just proves you should never say never. It was only when the "Zarbati", or supposedly crack troops, suddenly started moving forward on Sunday that we realised something really was afoot. Back on Major Danger's front-line roof, just west of the Soviet-era Bagram airbase, I listened as Commander Mowlana Abdurahman outlined the plan.

"We'll attack through Qarahbagh [a village on the front line] and, once we've taken that and broken [...]

"Take cover! Don't worry about those idiots if they want to kill themselves," shouted Major Danger, pointing at us. His men crouched behind the dozen sandbags on the roof parapet.

Sayed Khatar, or Major Danger as we call him, was reacting to the sighting of a Taliban heavy machine-gun. Two enemy heads bobbed up and down as the weapon fired single rounds at something off to our right. Each [...]