Whoa, that was huge! It wasn't that close, but it's the biggest blast of air I've felt here. There was no video, just voices and a color map of the Middle East. But those voices painted vivid pictures of the opening moments of a battle joined. Americans were learning over their dinner tables that their nation was at war. And they were hearing that war. For nearly two unbroken hours, Holliman, Peter Arnett and Bernard Shaw hunkered on the floor of a darkened hotel room, occasionally crawling to an open window to stick out a microphone so the sounds of anti-aircraft fire and bombs reached a worldwide audience.
The other 42 American correspondents and technicians allowed themselves to be led to a basement bomb shelter by Iraqi officials after sending initial reports back to their networks.
But when the "Baghdad Boys" of CNN were confronted by the same Iraqis, Shaw hid under a table and Holliman under a bed, hoping that at least one of them would be missed and left behind to continue broadcasting. Holliman later told listeners that Arnett had shouted, "I was in Vietnam. You have to let me stay here. If I go to the shelter, I will go crazy. The three correspondents attempted successfully to paint the intensity of the attack on the Baghdad area and, at the same time, to assure their large audience in the United States that Americans involved in the air strike apparently were safe.
At p. EST, which was a. Forty minutes later, when Baghdad had gone to complete blackout, Holliman suddenly realized that there was still one light burning in their hotel room, "and we're probably more visible than we want to be. At , during a lull in the bombing, Shaw commented, "You wouldn't know there's life outside these windows.
We can see there are fires off in the distance. It's eerily silent. As target after target was hit, including the communications center, Shaw marveled that they were still on the air. Holliman agreed that either the Iraqis or, indeed, the Americans, could have cut off their broadcasts at any time. Arnett suggested that Iraqi officials wanted to get the story out.
