In Iraq, Journalist Richard Engel Sticks to the Story

Not that Engel necessarily approves of military conflict.

"I think war should be illegal," he says. "I'm basically a pacifist."

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Engel was taping a standup last week on Haifa Street, in one of Baghdad's most dangerous neighborhoods, where he was traveling with the 172nd Stryker Brigade.

Suddenly shots rang out. The unit was under sniper fire. "Let's go, go, go, go, go, go!" one soldier shouted. Engel scrambled for cover, but completed his report a few minutes later.

He has little patience for the notion that the media are suffering from Iraq fatigue because the story -- day after day of death and destruction -- has gotten so repetitive.

"Whether you agree with the war or not, I have a very soft spot for the guys who are out there. These guys have saved my life on more than one occasion, and they are dying at the rate of two a day, and they deserve to be talked about."

Danger lurks everywhere for Western correspondents in Iraq. Engel has survived two kidnapping attempts, one of which occurred when a pair of cars surrounded his vehicle, forcing his driver to make an evasive maneuver at 90 miles per hour with a third car in hot pursuit. And journalists' hotels are a periodic target. Engel's hotel room has been blown up three times in insurgent attacks, once collapsing the ceiling and another time blowing off the door as shrapnel filled the room.

"There's a fine line between fearless and crazy," Williams says. "Richard is not crazy. He has distilled risk to a science."

Few would have predicted that Engel would become an intrepid war correspondent when he was growing up on Manhattan's East 86th Street. He suffered from dyslexia and struggled in school.

"He was down in the mouth and low on self-confidence," says his mother, Nina Engel. "He lived in the shadow of his older brother, Mr. Perfect," who is now a cardiologist. In fact, she had only "a very faint hope" that he would be able to go to college.

When he was 13, Engel asked his parents to send him to a wilderness survival program in Wyoming. Frustrated by his learning disabilities, he was eager to escape the comforts of Upper East Side life and try a tougher environment.