The New York Times
March 20, 2003
By Alessandra Stanley
When explosions finally rang out in Baghdad, they seemed so mild that even an old warrior like Gen. Alexander M. Haig Jr. could not quite believe it was the first stage of the long-awaited war.
“Iraqis are so goosey,” General Haig drawled on Fox News, which, like other news channels, scrambled to interpret an image of the Baghdad skyline, “it might just be a flock of bats.”
Half an hour later, President George W. Bush appeared on television at his desk in the Oval Office, looking tense and suddenly young and vulnerable as he told the nation the war had begun.
Tom Brokaw, who was on the air with a live edition of the NBC program “Dateline,” was the first to announce reports of fire over Baghdad. He had Peter Arnett, on assignment in Baghdad for National Geographic Explorer, on the telephone. Mr. Arnett identified the sounds of sirens at 9:32.
On another line, Mr. Brokaw had the commander of the 1991 Persian Gulf war, Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf. Mr. Brokaw was quick to ask the general if the United States was trying a “surgical strike” against the Iraqi leadership.
CBS, CNN and Fox followed NBC by just a few minutes, but ABC seemed to have been taken by surprise. Peter Jennings, the news anchor, was not in the studio, and Chris Wallace, a correspondent, took charge without much help from ABC’s military consultant, Tony Cordesman, who said the attack was a surprise. Mr. Cordesman said he had expected action to start on Friday.
Mr. Jennings raced back to the studio and made it to his seat only minutes before the president began his address.
