Get that man down from the roof at once

Rolling news made Rageh Omaar a TV star, but its relentless demands limit his memoir of the Iraq war, Revolution Day, says Jon Snow
Revolution Day by Rageh Omaar
Buy Revolution Day at Public domain

Revolution Day
by Rageh Omaar
Viking £20, pp272

Much has been written of the Stockholm syndrome which finds hostages identifying with their captors. Less is written of Rooftop syndrome, in which war correspondents are held hostage by the voracious appetite of 24-hour television news. Rageh Omaar was one such victim. He does not discuss the condition in Revolution Day, yet its effects circumscribe his book. His account of the war on Iraq rarely leaves Baghdad and, not often enough, the confines of the Ministry of Information and later the Palestine Hotel.

That said, this is a worthwhile account of what it was like to be a BBC correspondent in Baghdad in the build-up to and execution of the war. The centrepiece is more the experience of the correspondent than any particular new understanding of who we went to war with or whether it was a good idea to do so. His best writing is reserved for the American attack on his hotel and the killing and wounding of Reuters journalists in their office two floors above his. And nothing can take away from the uncertainty and fear the 140 journalists endured by staying on in Baghdad to witness the American assault.

Omaar's book is part of the patchwork of writing that has sprung up around the war, but it fails to set itself apart from the mainstream. The key characters are his BBC team and their Iraqi helpers and minders. His praise is largely reserved for them and his news desk in London. Yet, to some extent, they must share the blame for generating the syndrome that came to envelop Omaar and perhaps deprive him of the chance to contribute a unique insight into one of the most alarming military adventures of the past three decades.

For many, Omaar was the face of the war in Baghdad. Tune into the BBC at any time and there he was, handsome of feature, articulate in word and dependable in the regularity of his rooftop appearances. He also had a gift denied to all but the most unusual journalists - fluent Arabic.

The BBC kept Omaar lashed to the remorseless wheel of 24-hour TV. At best, he could run down to the latest bomb blast and record a 'piece to camera', or visit the wounded in a nearby hospital. There was hardly a moment when he could sit casually and exercise his Arabic. Never in this account do we reap the benefits of his language. He attends demonstrations, but never reports an overheard phrase or a grabbed observation with a bystander. Despite this gift of language, his account is very much from the outside looking in.

The one lifeline that might have got him out into the Iraqi countryside - chasing after the UN weapons inspectors - he abandons because the journeys were 'fruitless'. But wasn't that the nub of the whole story?

Just before Baghdad falls, Omaar describes the American forces 'pushing at an open door'. But journeys that I and other correspondents made through the country before the war found the door more than open - it was right off its hinges.

Omaar's book has been excitedly awaited. What perspective would an Arab-speaking, British-educated, African-born reporter bring to this dispute? It's a question he does not answer here. It is hard to divine what he really feels about what is going on - a smattering of fear, frustration, sadness even, but not much more.

Omaar expresses almost no opinions. His concluding paragraph on the consequences of the capture of Saddam could have been lifted from a White House briefing paper: 'It could also lead the way to regime change in a way that will benefit them, providing a framework for the emergence of an independent, sovereign and stable state.'

In BBC terms, Omaar proved a model prisoner. Nothing controversial, thoroughly professional and absolutely none of the naughtiness of Mr Gilligan who was at his side in Baghdad throughout but who attracts almost not a word. What was it like being so close for so long to the man who, while this book was being written, became the most controversial journalist in modern British history?

Last week, during the Royal Television Society Awards, there was a gasp when it was discovered that the 'face of the war on Iraq' had won nothing.

Omaar, who is capable and telegenic, has been ambushed in the springtime of a promising career by 24-hour television news. If the bosses about whom he writes so affectionately had really loved him in return, they would have rescued him from Rooftop syndrome, kicked him off the ramparts of the Information Ministry and the Palestine hotel and told him to use his undoubted skills to get inside Iraq. His viewers and readers would have learnt so much more about who it was we were about to kill.

· Jon Snow's Shooting History will be published by HarperCollins in the autumn