The TV Zone

Seems churlish to describe tomorrow night's History Channel special, "Baghdad Diary" (at 10) as a bait-and-switch, but a bait-and-switch it is: There's nothing about ABC News’ former anchor Bob Woodruff here, although he hosts and has been the public face on this broadcast for weeks, leading to at least ill-(in)formed impressions (like my own) that he'd have a greater role. He has virtually none at all.

Get past that and there are other problems: Though tracking events that happened a mere four and a half years ago, it feels like ancient history. Hardly irrelevant history - history never is - and hardly uninteresting, given the subject matter, but so much has happened and continues to happen in that tragic country and city that watching these video diaries following the war's outbreak sometimes gives one the impression of looking through a straw at some distant point: You know that a great deal is taking place, or has taken place, beyond your limited scope, and you feel a little slighted that your straw doesn't offer a wider angle view.

"Diaries" never does, never attempts to, and - in fairness – couldn’t possibly, as these "diaries" are based on you-are-there accounts by different people with different perspectives, including NBC cameraman Craig White - who accompanied David Bloom across the desert and, after Bloom's death, went straight into the heart of Baghdad himself - and Fadil Kadom, a 36-year-old Iraqi taxi driver who was given a hand-held videocam by a Norwegian journalist so he would track the movements of ordinary Iraqis at the war's outset.

"BD," as such, has an immediacy that seems ill-placed: This isn't quite history and it isn't quite journalism, but something in between. The footage is occasionally riveting, but it also feels terribly familiar. There are scenes of great carnage and great tragedy - but we've actually seen worse in the intervening years, if that's possible. Maybe we've - maybe I'VE - become spoiled, or maybe I've just become numb, but when you see fields strewn with Iraqi remains or bullets whizzing through a Baghdad underpass, you want to look away, or close your eyes. After all, some of these men you see fighting in "real time" four years ago, may no longer even be alive. The same with the Iraqis. It's all the first act of a terrible tragedy, and we haven't even reached the final act.

If you do decide to sit through this, maybe you'll come away with a couple of other impressions, as I did: Admiration for the courage and professionalism of people like White and Kadom, but (especially) admiration for the average Iraqi citizens and the U.S. soldiers thrown into their midst.