I became a war correspondent through an act of gross cowardice. It was 6.30am and I was at home in Los Angeles when my editor called and asked if I wanted to "go to war". Still half asleep - but mindful that foreign correspondents are supposed to want to cover wars - I mumbled something vaguely positive. How bad could it be? A few months later, I found out. It was approaching 35 degrees and I was dressed in baggy chemical suit, flak jacket and helmet, digging a coffin-shaped fox hole in the mud of an Iraqi marsh. All around...