Rating: 
November 17, 2007
THE Iraq war is as complex as the Mideast itself.
And that means it's nearly impossible for most of us who aren't there to begin to figure out what it is, how it happened and where it's going.
That's why I was so overwhelmed by "Baghdad Diary," airing tonight on The History Channel.
It is not just one of the most balanced takes you will see on the war in Iraq, but it allows the giant picture to play out simply, yet beautifully, by two men who have been there from the beginning.
Those two men are NBC cameraman Craig White, who was the embedded teammate of the late NBC News correspondent David Bloom, who died at the start of the war in White's arms (from deep vein thrombosis and a pulmonary embolism).
The other is Fadil Kadom, an Iraqi taxi driver who was given a video camera by Norwegian television before the war began and asked to record his everyday life and experiences.
While "Baghdad Diary" is hosted by Bob Woodruff - who had the best job in the US as co-anchor of ABC's "World News Tonight" before sustaining life-threatening injuries in Iraq - it's not about him. And Woodruff is the first one to make that very, very clear.
The real stars are White and Kadom, who have risked their lives and limbs to record the war from the days before it began, to the elation of "victory" by the Americans shortly thereafter to the horror of what it has devolved into.
Both men are incredibly brave. White is now on his eighth tour for ABC News in Iraq as an embed with the US 3rd Infantry Division.
Kadom, a modest-yet-insightful man who has managed to keep his family alive, has meticulously recorded the impact of the war on his family as well as his destroyed neighborhood - despite the great danger in just having a camera.
Citizens, he explains, under Saddam Hussein's regime, were forbidden to use video cameras without permission.
After Saddam's fall it became even more dangerous, since both the military and insurgents could easily mistake someone with a camera for a spy.
From the days before the first invasion to the ongoing devastation, the two men have bravely taken their cameras everywhere - not without regard for their personal safety, or concern for their families - but because they have a need to show the truth.
It's brutal, it's ugly and it's devastatingly real, with photos of mass graves, torture, and children who've been shot.
As White warns at the very beginning, "Modern warfare as I saw it in Iraq - it's not like in the movies with people being shot and there's a big red spot and then they fall backwards and die. They come apart. They explode."
Ugly and horrifying as only real war can be.
"Baghdad Diary"
Tonight at 10 on History Channel
