Iraq: Escalating guerrilla attacks feed fears of new Vietnam

As a helicopter crash pushes the American military toll over 400, Phil Reeves discovers how promises of peace, prosperity and self-rule have given way to chaos, terror and insurrection

16 November 2003

The blast hit the car with a stunning thud. All around us vehicles skidded to a halt as a turret of dust and smoke uncoiled high into the air and across the highway.

We were only 35 yards away when the bomb exploded, spraying out from the central reservation into the fast lane. My driver, Mohammed, let out a shout of surprise and slammed on the brakes. We were seconds from disaster.

A few heart thumps later, the target of the remotely detonated roadside mine sped past - a Humvee from the US military police, escorting a convoy of lorries travelling into Baghdad from Kuwait. This time the Americans were lucky. So were the other Iraqi motorists around them. And so were we.

Coming under attack in the early afternoon of a clear day while travelling a motorway that runs across the landscape from Fallujah to Baghdad is like being shelled while driving down the M4 from London to Bristol. Although dotted with the occasional factory plant and depot, the place is flat and open. It is not the sort of territory one immediately associates with the setting for a chronic guerrilla war.

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