Back to Baghdad

"Do you know how to use a weapon?" asked Lieutenant Kyle Painter. "If the worst case scenario happens, you should know how to fire this," he said, demonstrating the catch on an M4 rifle. "Sitting in the back there, you are a key person. Being a reporter goes of the window."

I've heard the US army is overstretched, but this?

I was last in Baghdad in November - unarmed - and returned to journalistic duties in London just in time to report the auction of the world's biggest truffle. Before setting off for my second embed in the Iraqi capital, my preparation consisted of spending 24 hours in a theater watching all eight plays in Shakespeare's history cycle.

Richard II is a cruel dictator illegally toppled and subsequently put to death. Henry IV struggles to legitimize the occupation and sends in troops. Henry VI's popularity slumps as sectarian rivals carry out atrocities and threaten a bloody civil war. Richard III emerges as the most powerful militia leader but the real winner is France, neighbor and enemy in a past war.

The odd thing about sitting in Camden's Roundhouse theatre on a balmy London evening, as Michael Boyd's sublime productions for the Royal Shakespeare Company reached their climax, was how real the war of theater can appear, and how unreal the theater of war can seem. Less than a day after watching Richard III splash about in pints of stage blood, I found myself on a plane to the Gulf trying to re-imagine the heat, dust and fear stalking the bomb-cratered streets of Iraq.

The US bases here are imperial in their giant footprints and even have their own coffee shops, Pizza Huts and street signs. At Camp Striker near Baghdad international airport, I saw that one dirt track had been named Band of Brothers. I took it as a reference to Steven Spielberg's TV series but thought back to Henry V:

"We few, we happy few, we band of brothers,For he today that sheds his blood with meShall be my brother."Last year I traveled into Iraq with a grizzled Vietnam veteran-turned-journalist who still relishes the dirt, guns and craic on the front line. This time I shared military transport through the desert with two young Frenchwomen wearing summer blouses and reading Elle and OK!, the latter's glossy cover headlined "Wedding of the year" above a picture of Angelina Jolie. I rather hope it is they, not some camera-toting Rambo, who track down Bin Laden one day.

I flew by helicopter to forward operating base Loyalty, a US garrison in the compound that used to be the headquarters of Saddam Hussein's secret police. Soldiers here have pointed out what used to be jails where political prisoners were held in overcrowded cells and tortured, and described to me the discovery of meat hooks and blood on the walls. Some buildings are still as crushed to a pulp as the day the Americans bombed them in 2003. A door to the corridor where I'm staying has a sign reading "Not an exit", under which someone has added the word "strategy".

Two weeks ago the base came under attack from a dozen rockets made from oxygen cylinders packed with ball bearings and 150lbs of explosives. "I watched them wiggle in the air for 10 seconds - it seemed to take ages," recalled one captain. Three men on the ground were killed.

The base is only a few miles from Sadr City, the slum where the Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr's militia, the Mahdi army, has been fighting for the past two months, leaving hundreds dead. Journalistically it is the place to be. However, the infantry unit with which I'm embedded is patrolling areas bordering, but not inside, the neighborhood. It's a case of being so near yet so far, like being stranded on the Tube a stop short of your destination.

Out with patrols in the Tisa Nisan area I've come upon boulevards lined by palm trees, thriving street markets decked with plump watermelons, and army interpreters doing sudoku puzzles. I saw shop signs including Tooty Cafe, Iraqi Airways and Pizza Hot, the latter incorporating a direct steal of Pizza Hut's logo. And close by, another sign: "You may be shot for damaging or stealing protected cameras." Elsewhere there are burnt-out cars, rubble and rubbish in the streets, electrical wires strewn like spaghetti and a series of ominous concrete walls and military checkpoints. Essential services are still dire.

Even within families there are disagreements about whether the Americans should stay or go. Rad Mohamed, 57, the owner of a shoe shop in Zayona market, said: "All the American troops behave very well when they pass this area. I'm very respectful for guys who leave their families and come to sacrifice their time to bring peace for my family. If the Americans leave, it won't be good for us."

His 34-year-old son Alaa al-Fahed, however, who also works in the shop, said: "I dislike the Americans. It's not only me: all Iraqis share this opinion. We hate the Americans and anyone who invades this country. We want them to leave."

Despite the relative calm, sunshine and birdsong, the soldiers are in no doubt these streets can be deadly. The talk inside their sweatbox Humvees repeatedly turns to the threat of roadside bombs, who got lucky, who didn't, and how helpless they are to predict when and where the next device will explode. Suddenly every pile of rocks or upturned kerbstone becomes potential crouching death.

"You should have been with us the other day," said Specialist Isaac Meeks. "We got blown up three times in a hundred meters. When one of those things goes off and misses, we laugh at it. If you can't take everything as a joke here, you're done."