Shock, awe, death, joy and looting: how the Guardian covered the outbreak of the Iraq war

The Guardian's coverage of the Iraq War began with the March 21, 2003 'Land, Sea and Air Assault' headline, documenting the initial ground war and cruise missile bombardments on Baghdad. The newspaper deployed both embedded journalists like Audrey Gillen with British forces and independent reporters like Suzanne Goldenberg and photographer Sean Smith in Baghdad. Smith's photography particularly captured what Jon Snow called 'the indignity and smoky pointlessness of the Iraq conflict,' while working without standard protective equipment due to his fatalistic view of war's random nature. The paper covered the 'shock and awe' bombing campaign from the Palestine Hotel, with Goldenberg describing it as 'watching a gigantic video game.' James Meek worked as an unilateral journalist, gaining easier access to Iraqi civilians while sometimes relying on military units for support. The coverage included controversial decisions like publishing graphic photographs of bombing victims, which drew both praise and criticism. As Baghdad fell in April 2003, The Guardian documented both the toppling of Saddam's statue and the subsequent looting and lawlessness. The newspaper gave voice to young Iraqi perspectives through Baghdad blogger Salam Pax (Salam Abdul Munim) and interpreter-turned-journalist Raed Abdulahad, both of whom initially supported the invasion as necessary to remove Saddam but later questioned whether the intervention was worth the chaos that followed. A decade later, Abdulahad expressed regret, stating he would prefer returning to military dictatorship rather than the ongoing violence, believing Saddam's regime would have eventually collapsed naturally.