The burning oil fields of Rumaila appear like the fires of hell. The brilliant orange plumes leap into the sky with a thunderous roar and emit a sooty, black smoke that darkens the horizons for miles. Brigadier-General Robert Crear, commandant of the US Army Corps of Engineers, watches the light and sound show without too much concern. The top ranking US-led coalition force officer explains that the situation could have been much worse if Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's planned "scorched earth" policy had not been thwarted by the US military early into the war.

CIVIL WAR: A US soldier carries a boy injured during fighting in south Iraq below; angry citizens after an air raid on Baghdad

With over a thousand wells pock-marking the desert landscape, the Rumaila fields account for two-thirds of Iraq's oil production. Saddam had ordered the army regiment guarding the wells to set them on fire if there was a threat of these coming under the control of the coalition force. Saddam, the US Army believes, is wont to destroy Iraq's economy if he fears being overthrown to make the task of rehabilitating the country more difficult. In essence, it would be a replay of 1991. When Iraqi forces were forced to withdraw from Kuwait they set over 700 oil wells on fire resulting in huge economic losses and the environment being polluted for years.

So even as coalition forces rained cruise missiles on Baghdad, US Marines, using the cover of darkness, moved in rapidly from Kuwait and disarmed the 1,000-strong Iraqi militia guarding the Rumaila oil wells. It was still not quick enough to prevent nine wells being torched. The US forces immediately sent for Boots and Coots, the oil-well control specialists who years ago had put out an oil-well fire in India. Within days four of the fires were out and there were realistic hopes of bringing the wells back into production within a month. As Crear told India Today: "Securing oil fields to prevent their destruction is a priority mission for us. We now plan to restore the oil infrastructure to benefit the Iraqi people."

Ten days into the second Gulf War, forestalling a possible economic catastrophe is one of the few silver linings of "Operation Iraqi Freedom". The "only days" that the offensive was initially expected to take has of late turned to a "few weeks." US President George W. Bush has now made the time frame even more vague by declaring, "It would be however long it takes."

GLOBAL VIEW: Journalists gather in Baghdad to listen to Saddam's speech

After the amazing initial thrust when the US armoured cavalry rapidly lay siege to Baghdad, there are signs that the campaign may not be going as well as the coalition strategists would have the world believe. As Iraqi defence put up surprising resistance in towns and cities that were considered cakewalks, there are indications that the battle for control of Baghdad may take longer, get messier and nastier and come at a much higher price than the leaders of the coalition force would like to pay.

How much grief can America swallow?

"This war is about liberation and not occupation," says General Tommy Franks, commander-in-chief of US Central Command and the boss of the showdown in Iraq. That objective, while laudable, is proving a major constraint as the war reaches a critical stage. Initially, with the world opinion firmly against the use of military force and assembled without UN or international sanction, the coalition was extremely careful not to cause civilian casualties. In the first week, while its "shock and awe" campaign saw over 3,000 missiles being dropped on Baghdad, they were focused on military targets. Civilian deaths numbered less than 20. "We are going to extraordinary lengths to choose selective military targets. We aren't here to kill many people. We are giving them a chance to give up," says Group Captain John Fynes, spokesperson for Britain's Royal Air Force.

OIL INFERNO: US helicopters fly over the Rumaila oil fields. Several oil wells have been set on fire by retreating Iraqi militia.

From the beginning, the coalition strategy, which has shown a phenomenal degree of flexibility, was based on a "hard and soft" approach. So while Baghdad was being pounded with thousands of tonnes of explosives, major urban centres in south Iraq such as Basra and Al Nasiriyah were inundated with pamphlets dropped from aircraft. These urged the people and the defence personnel to overthrow Saddam. The hope was that if southern Iraq welcomed the coalition as a liberating force, the regime in Baghdad would come under enormous pressure. It was one of the reasons why the coalition force made a surprising thrust towards Baghdad in the first week of the war even before using its full range of airpower to knock out Saddam's command and control capability. The other was that the ground forces were bunched in the Kuwait border when the offensive began and would have been easy targets for Saddam's missiles.

Instead of garlands, however, coalition troops have been greeted with bullets in most cities they have tried to take. The port town of Umm Qasr, just kilometres away from Kuwait's border, took almost a week's fighting to secure. The allied force initially believed it could bypass Basra, Iraq's second largest city, and open another flank in the push for Baghdad. But within hours of claiming that a major Iraqi division in Basra had voluntarily surrendered, the coalition's credibility was dented when Saddam's militia started fighting back. Other urban centres of Najaf and Al Nasiriyah have witnessed as fierce fighting.

While Iraqi forces have taken a pounding, the coalition force is also feeling the pressure of body bags being flown back home. Initially the deaths in the coalition ranks resulted from their own mistakes. A US chopper crashing because of a malfunction, two British helicopters colliding into each other and a Patriot missile accidentally bringing down a British fighter mistaking it for an Iraqi missile targeted at Kuwait. But as Saddam's men began fighting back, death or injury came in fierce combats. The toll has now crossed 40. Worse, some of the coalition's missiles have gone off the mark and mowed down civilians, as happened in Baghdad last week when 17 people were killed. Iraq claims that since the war began, 175 civilians have been killed and 1,110 injured.

SANDBAGGED: The security in Baghdad has increased with the posting of Iraqi militia and men from Saddam's dreaded intelligence agencies

What casualty figures would be politically acceptable to Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair? In the previous Gulf war, the casualty was remarkably low: one soldier lost in 15,000 deployed. In the two World Wars, the ratio was one death for every 15 soldiers. In India, the 500 deaths in Kargil was a cause of much perturbation. In the US, given that intimate details of the proceedings of this war are being telecast, any figure that runs into several hundreds would be politically dangerous for its leaders. Equally, a high Iraqi civilian casualty would be a severe reversal for the coalition.

How long will the war last?

After watching the initial sluggishness with which Iraq moved, especially in the south, senior coalition officers were contemptuous of Saddam's strategy. Colonel Chris Vernon, spokesperson for the British Army that is now engaged in the battle for Basra, told India Today: "It is difficult to understand their planning. They work in incoherent ways and much of the army appears to be a ragtag bunch." But a week later, Saddam unfurled his game plan and it immediately put the coalition on the back-foot.

Saddam has opted for what Vernon admits is the worst nightmare of any commander-battles in the cities. "Military commanders like to avoid engagements in urban areas at all costs," says Vernon. Saddam knows that his tanks and artillery would take a battering if they went in for classical battles based on manoeuvres in open spaces. In 1991, the US slaughtered his tank formations by cutting off their retreat and pinning them in the desert. His plan is to draw the enemy into urban combat, turn Baghdad into a Stalingrad and inflict a heavy toll on the enemy.

NOTHING BUT THE EMBEDDED TRUTH

Never before has the world had access to so many versions of frontline facts

MASKED RAIDERS: Coalition soldiers don protective gear and hit 'scud trenches' in Kuwait The hand hovering over a corpse in a Baghdad market freezes on BBC World as a disembodied voice tells us that it is too gruesome for our delicate constitutions. Flip to Al-Jazeera TV, the Qatar-based channel, and the blood and gore does make the stomach turn. War isn't pretty. We have seen its grainy pictures in Time-Life, its slow-motion brutality in Saving Private Ryan, its "dil maange more" patriotism ending in cruel young deaths in the 1999 Kargil war. But as we see it slice by slice, second by second, we finally know this: there is no one war. There are as many wars as there are itchy fingers on the remote. And in a post-World Cup India, the fingers are very itchy indeed. It is the itchy fingers that allows us to see two different Saddam Husseins in one address. CNN tells us his pasty face is not moving and the pages are not being shuffled at regular intervals. On Abu Dhabi TV, he looks like himself, dyed hair and all. With CNN and BBC World looking like the US version of Iraqi TV, Abu Dhabi TV -the only network with a studio in Baghdad-and the contrarian Al-Jazeera have cocked a snook at the West, proving that artfully camouflaged propaganda is not their exclusive preserve. The living room war has been on since Vietnam. Many of us who were fortunate to be part of the infancy of the cable boom (or stared goggle-eyed at TV screens in hotel rooms rented by rich friends) became familiar with its eerie intimacy in 1991 as we saw Baghdad being bombed. But now, the war is in our face. Breathlessly, we have stood with our backs to the wall in Basra, waiting for a sniper, a flag-waving guerrilla shamming surrender, even a landmine. We have watched Marines wash up as they wait for their battalion to be relieved. We have seen soldiers targeting a warehouse not knowing who the return fire is from. Despite unprecedented access, this war has not been about heroes (unless you count the Hollywood looks of CNN's John Vause in Doha and Becky Anderson's pretty jewellery in Kuwait). There is no flak-clad journalist standing suspiciously close to a booming Bofors gun to craft melodramatic TV and earn chattering-class heroine status. As Iraqi villagers in Nasiriyah jostle each other for food packets, the Marines distributing them don't look like the victors US President George W. Bush would have us believe. As the villagers' cheap shoes squelch in the mud, the West looks like what it is: a world that has denied these people their daily bread. Saddam, in whose praise two overweight pumpkins sing hosannas on Iraqi TV, looks the evil dictator he is. And yet, and yet. We have seen the futility of Bush's war. It is in the face of the Texan soldier who is asked what it feels like to be impaled by David Leanesque sandstorms. "It's okay, I guess," says the near-tearful 19-year-old. We see it in the captured Apache helicopter pilot's face as he tries to look brave-it brings back memories of our own Nachiketa. And we hear it on DD in the desperation with which Saaed Naqvi hollers at Satish Jacob, our man in Baghdad. For the first time, "embedded" reporters have gone to the frontlines of history and changed the way we look at war. We have not always agreed with them-CNN's Walter Rodgers' cheerleading inability to distinguish between himself and the troops he is with is particularly grating-but we have become addicted to them. For the first time, truth is not a casualty of war. Collateral damage is not just another name for civilian deaths, smart bombs are often very stupid and friendly fire just means killing the wrong person. To be fair, CNN and BBC World have tried to be objective. They have ensured protests get space. They have given a hand-wringing Kofi Annan crumbs off the table. They have even telecast two-men-and-a-candle protests in India. But the dominant point of view has been that of their two governments. CNN International President Chris Cramer disagrees: "Embed is a long way away from in bed," he says. "We are the only channel to be watched by the Government in Baghdad. We're doing our best to return." In one word, it is called globalisation. CNN has to be as careful not to offend Baghdad as it does Washington. Equally, Al-Jazeera has to be wary of pushing the US and Britain too far. In a world with freedom-yes, it exists despite Bush and Saddam-war is no longer one nation's monopoly. Neither is the truth.

Kaveree Bamzai

To neutralise the overwhelming technology superiority of the coalition force, Saddam has cleverly positioned much of his armour in built-up areas in major towns and cities. Even with precision bombing the US and its allies would inflict heavy civilian casualties that can create a worldwide uproar. In addition to positioning his well-trained and fiercely loyal Republican Guards in such areas, Saddam is using fidayeen or suicide bombers to harass US troops and their supply lines.

Saddam is using old world common sense in defending his capital. There are three protective rings thrown around the city by the Republican Guards and the even more elite Special Republican Guards. The Iraqi strongman has also hidden his armoury in schools, hospitals and places of worship-all difficult targets for the invading soldiers. A city of five million, street-to-street fighting would require intensive manpower, which the allied force is currently short of. With Turkey's refusal to allow the US land forces to use its territory to make an ingress into Iraq, the crucial offensive on the northern front has not gained much momentum. The US Army's ace 4th Mechanized Infantry that was to join the pincer movement against Baghdad was stranded in the Mediterranean. Only now are they being moved to combat formations from Kuwait.

At the same time the weather window is narrowing for the coalition, with the temperatures in mid-April likely to soar to uncomfortable levels. Dehydration would set in and supply lines would be under pressure. Blinding desert storms that occur frequently during the summer would greatly hamper movement. Saddam's tactics, therefore, would be to bog down the coalition troops for weeks, if not months.

Will Saddam use chemical weapons?

This past week, the allied force discovered large quantities of chemical weapons suits in caches of armour that they seized. This, they say, is the smoking gun that proves Saddam has chemical weapons. Such reports prompted UN chief inspector Hans Blix to say, "If the Iraqis ever use chemical weapons then they are liars and world opinion will turn against them." Tommy Franks puts it more blandly: "Then we win."

But will Saddam ever use the chemical weapons he is believed to have stashed away in substantial quantities? US military analysts talk of the Iraqi leader having drawn an invisible red line in Baghdad's defence. If the US troops breach that, they believe it will prompt Saddam to employ chemicals like sarin and VX that kill quickly. But the allied soldiers are confident of weathering such attacks without many casualties, the optimism arising from the fact that they are equipped and drilled for such an eventuality.

Every soldier on the field is equipped with a special NBC (nuclear, biological and chemical) suit that includes protective masks and antidotes to counter chemical poisoning. Every day they are drilled on pulling on the suits swiftly-nine seconds is the norm. They also learn how to decontaminate their equipment. The NBC suits, however, add to the bulk the soldiers have to carry. "It is like wearing a snowsuit and it can get very stuffy," says Mary Xenikakis, a private first class in the US Army. The April temperatures would make wearing the suits and masks for more than a few minutes unbearable, thereby increasing their vulnerability to chemical attacks. But Saddam is likely to resort to chemical weapons only when he believes that all is lost-for he knows it will turn international opinion completely against him. Another diversion Iraq could employ is to have the Al-Qaida or its constituents carry out a major terrorist attack elsewhere to distract US attention. But that could only make Bush more determined to remove him. Saddam's best bet is to move the battle to the cities and prolong it as long as possible.

Either way the next few weeks will see some of the bloodiest battles every fought. The end game for taking control of Baghdad may turn out to be the biggest nightmare for the US yet.