Rageh Omaar reported from Iraq for six years prior to the conflict in 2003. He evaded the official minders to meet ordinary Iraqis, finding out how they lived under Saddam's brutal regime. Then war came, and instead of retreating he chose to stay in Baghdad, to see firsthand the country he loved crumble beneath the Allied onslaught. His shocking account of the years of siege, of the war that followed and its terrifying fallout is a heartbreaking and fascinating testament to a people enduring deprivation and destruction, told by the man who was there before, during and after.