BROOKE GLADSTONE: Foreign reporters working in Iraq before and during the war were provided with a government minder from the inaptly named Ministry of Information. Officially, of course, the minder's job was to aid the journalists, but unofficially it was to prevent them from reporting anything that the regime didn't want the rest of the world to see. John Irvine is a British television reporter who spent time in Iraq before and during the war. His minder, Sadoun Wahab, like most of the people in is position, disappeared without a trace a couple of days before Baghdad fell. When the reporter returned to Baghdad two months later, he went in search of the minder who he realized had become a friend. Without too much difficulty he found him and wrote about their reunion for the Independent of London.

JOHN IRVINE:I was very glad to see him. He looked extraordinarily well. Like a lot of Iraqi friends when I went back I would swear they all looked about 5 years younger -- the pressure of the regime having gone.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: What was the reunion like? Was he happy to see you?

JOHN IRVINE: Yes, he was very happy to see me. He, he had more or less been in hiding for the intervening period.

BROOKE GLADSTONE:How is it that you became fond of a man whose job was to obstruct you and who was basically your representative of an oppressive regime?

JOHN IRVINE:Yes. I mean in terms of our relationship, if you look at it in the cold light of day, it was his job to try to prevent me from doing my job properly, and I saw it as my job to try to prevent him from doing his properly, and in the end we did reach a-- an understanding. He thankfully, as other minders did, he bent the rules. I think he trusted us and he didn't censor us or vet our material in the way that he should have done if he'd done his job to the letter.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: Could you give me an example of how he bent the rules?

JOHN IRVINE:I can remember being taken by Sadoun out to Baghdad or Saddam International Airport as it was called during the war. The Americans were putting out information that U.S. forces were closing in on Baghdad Airport. This was the first key objective for them in the battle for Baghdad. Now the Iraqi Information Ministry arranged a bus trip to the airport to try to show that the Americans weren't there and that the airport was still in Iraqi hands. We missed the bus. Sadoun fixed a ride for us in our own car out to the airport about 3 hours after the other journalists had been there. Now when we arrived at the airport, American artillery opened up. I, I should say that when the other journalists had been there it had been absolutely quiet, but as I say, we were there several hours later. We fled from our Chevrolet Suburban and the only place that we could take refuge was in an Iraqi army bunker which Sadoun beckoned us into. Now he made a couple of half-hearted attempts to prevent my cameraman from filming. We ignored him completely. I mean he, he seemed to accept that we were going to record this landmark story, and indeed we did.

BROOKE GLADSTONE:You know it's funny -- NPR's Anne Garrels has spoken with such fondness and respect for her quote/unquote "minder" -- he seems to have made a lot of her stories possible by not only allowing her to go places where other minders would not allow her to go but even tipping her off to things. He was an active colleague in the pursuit of reporting this story. Do you think people like Sadoun or Annie Garrels' minder -- were they unusual?

JOHN IRVINE:I would say Annie and ourselves got lucky. I wouldn't know overall how minders treated others, because I didn't want other organizations inquiring about mine. [LAUGHTER] I didn't want -- if somebody found out that our minder was extremely agreeable, then there could have been complaints to the powers that be at the Information Ministry. So this wasn't a guy that I was going to crow about to anybody else.

BROOKE GLADSTONE:[LAUGHS] The regime is dismantled; Saddam is either dead or in hiding. Government workers like Sadoun are unemployed! He is tainted by the regime.

JOHN IRVINE: He doesn't see himself as being tainted by the regime. I mean if you want to decide that everyone who worked in any way for the regime is tainted, then you're dealing with, you know, 2 and a half million people in Baghdad alone.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: So it's sort of like East Germany after the wall fell -- everybody--

JOHN IRVINE: Exactly.

BROOKE GLADSTONE:-- had to engage with the party whether they wanted to or not and if you eliminate that entire class of skilled and educated people, you have nothing to work with!

JOHN IRVINE:Precisely. I mean they could argue that in effect they were-- victims of the regime as well. I mean-- others mightn't see it that way, but I, I always thought these were terribly genuine people -- I mean Annie - your own correspondent and myself - we were working for the enemy! I was a British journalist. She's a journalist from the United States and, and certainly in my entire experiences in Baghdad over the last 3 years, not a single angry word was said to me by a single Iraqi, and I pointed out in a number of broadcasts how would Londoners treat an Iraqi TV crew if Iraqi jets were bombing England?

BROOKE GLADSTONE: John, thank you very much.

JOHN IRVINE: Pleasure.