BOB GARFIELD: We're back with On the Media. I'm Bob Garfield.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: And I'm Brooke Gladstone. For the past three weeks we've been keeping tabs on NPR's John Burnett, a reporter embedded with the command battalion of the First Marine Division which as of Friday was camped a few miles south of the Iraqi border in Kuwait. John has allowed us to look backstage, so to speak, at what seems to be a precisely choreographed campaign. When we spoke to him Friday he had just returned from a trip across the border into Southern Iraq.

JOHN BURNETT: We actually got into quote/unquote "liberated Iraq" -- into this little border town of Safwan [sp?] and we got to see the first evidence of the American liberation of Iraq and what the reaction is, and it was very, very interesting.

BROOKE GLADSTONE:I notice you used the word "liberation" in quotes the first time and then removed the quotes the second time. What do your eyes tell you about that word?

JOHN BURNETT: It's not so much what my eyes tell me about liberation as what the eyes of the Iraqis tell them mean liberation, because they have heard a U.S. commitment to their liberation before, and of course we know how that turned out under the former President Bush -- he hung them out to dry and so there was a brutal repression of the Iraqi opposition, and particularly the Shiites in the south, so let's just say eight hours into the liberation there was bemusement, curiosity and, and some subdued celebration among the Iraqis on the arrival of U.S. troops. Now the main thing that was happening is they were looting all of the large houses and offices in town and, and the pathetic things that they were taking out of there -- these old beat-up office chairs and, and old rusted-out refrigerators and they were shuttling the stuff down the streets on their bicycles and in their carts and-- a really interesting thing happened -- an enormous convoy of unilateral photographers showed up in Safwan, the non-imbedded journalists -- our unilaterals. So the circus sort of moved to town briefly, looking for the definitive picture, and the best picture they could get was a Marine reconnaissance lieutenant tearing off a picture of Saddam and holding it up, and the photographers just went, you know, like papparazzi, just went crazy, and it was very interesting to me that it was not an Iraqi that was holding up and sneering at the picture of Saddam -- it was a U.S. Marine lieutenant and I think that tells us a great deal about at least at this early stage, the tentativeness with which the Iraqis see the arrival of their liberators.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: This wasn't a combat mission then; you just rolled in, and there they were.

JOHN BURNETT:Well, because I'm, I'm imbedded means, that yeah, a Marine captain and a colonel took three journalists in and so we went in surrounded by military, and then we had to have our chemical suits at our sides; we had to have our bullet-proof vests and our kevlar helmets and all this stuff and here's all the other unilateralist journalists all running around in tee shirts and jeans and kind of looking at us curiously and-- it reminded me of being with my parents on vacation-- [LAUGHTER] and how you sort of look at all the other kids on the beach, and sometimes wish you were running wild like them, but it was kind of secure and nice to be with your parents too. The other reason I say that is because at one point there, there was a convoy of these unilateralist journalists on the highway and we stopped to talk to them; I just wanted to see if I knew any of them. And they, they kind of, panic-stricken, asked our Marine driver well where is it safe to go and should I go this way and is Basra safe? And I know that feeling so well of being completely insecure, completely unprotected in a country that's totally lawless and just kind of wondering where is it safe, and, and frankly when you're with the Marines, you feel safe!

BROOKE GLADSTONE:As the war has begun, have you felt a, a conflict in what you say because of this feeling of security that you derive from your association with the Marines?

JOHN BURNETT: Actually I have had no pressures whatsoever. I've felt no pressures of someone hovering over me and worrying about my content. I've been very encouraged, and, and here's a great example of that. A couple of nights ago the headquarters battalion that I'm imbedded with had to move from its, its first position which was Camp Matilda to its current position which is 8 miles from the Iraqi border. And so it's --and it moved in two enormous convoys -- one was Alpha and the second was Bravo. Well the Alpha convoy got to the new camp location just fine; the Bravo convoy that I was with got lost, and so about 110 vehicles took the wrong turn and went all the way to the Iraq border. They passed all these signs that said camel crossing -- slow down; and then only when they literally got within about 50 meters of the Iraqi border did they realize my god-- this is the enemy! We're not supposed to be here! And so this enormous convoy had to all turn around and the, and the guy I was with who was driving our humvee was -- he was very upset, and he was saying "Well, by god-- we could almost smell Iraqi after shave! We almost started the war for Bush!-- right then!" And then it just got worse from there -- the convoy turned around and couldn't find the new camp and got lost in the desert and it was, it was just madness, and then we finally pulled in about 4 a.m. and we were, we were cold and exhausted and I was taking notes the whole time, and there was, you know, there was no attempt to hide this obvious screwup from me. So far the Marines have been willing to, you know, to show their warts!

BROOKE GLADSTONE:What about inside yourself though? I mean it's obvious you really like these guys and they're protecting you -- do you think that some judgment other than news judgment is going into what you choose to report?

JOHN BURNETT: I don't know. I mean-- [LAUGHS] -- I, I don't, I don't feel any constraints to say what I want to say, and if the time comes to rake them over the coals for an operation gone awry, that's exactly what I'll do.

BROOKE GLADSTONE:John, I can hear in your voice how excited you are! It's, it's a strange kind of privilege to be able to witness war from your vantage point. From our vantage point, we're watching buildings blowing up in Baghdad. We're hearing of civilian casualties. I wonder how any of that is filtering down to where you are, or if it is.

JOHN BURNETT: What's interesting is that I think when you come over here and when you imbed with this, with this group and you in a sense become sort of part of the project of the invasion and pacification of a country, you cease to hear the dissonant voices against that project, un--un--until you tune in to the BBC. And even then, you know, they're pretty muted. So-- all I can say is the job of the 7 to 800 reporters who are imbedded here is to report on what the military does. And frankly, we're not -- I don't think we have access to the people who still disagree with this war. We're not going to have as much access to the civilian center where there are going to be collateral damage and, and civilian casualties, and so we're going to depend on our colleagues tremendously to come behind us and to do that important reporting, to find out how this invasion is influencing, you know, the people of Iraq and, and what they think about it. So, you know, once again -- we see what we see, and we don't see what we don't see in this operation.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: Right. John, thanks so much for calling us.

JOHN BURNETT: You're very welcome, Brooke.

BROOKE GLADSTONE:NPR's John Burnett is imbedded with the command battalion of the First Marine Division, camped as of Friday 8 miles south of the Iraqi border in Kuwait.