During the 2003 invasion of Iraq, Fisk was based in Baghdad and filed many eyewitness reports. He criticised other journalists based in Iraq for what he calls their "hotel journalism", reporting from one's hotel room without interviews or first-hand experience of events. Fisk's criticism of the invasion was rejected by some other journalists. Fisk criticised the Coalition's handling of the sectarian violence in post-invasion Iraq, and argued that the official narrative of sectarian conflict is not possible: "The real question I ask myself is: who are these people who are trying to provoke the civil war? Now the Americans will say it's Al Qaeda, it's the Sunni insurgents. It is the death squads. Many of the death squads work for the Ministry of Interior. Who runs the Ministry of Interior in Baghdad? Who pays the Ministry of the Interior? Who pays the militia men who make up the death squads? We do, the occupation authorities. ... We need to look at this story in a different light."