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Before the troops get anywhere near the spilling of blood, generals and their civilian counterparts in government draw tight lines around information and let it out tactically.

Yes, tactically. Because that is the way the government views information. Like any commodity, it bears a value on the battlefield. For many journalists, this treatment of information is maddening. For others, it is a challenge to be fought. Others see all information during wartime as the equivalent of propaganda, not to be trusted, and strive to provide some balance by their own reporting.

The old news axiom was, ‘If you don’t trust the information either war machine produces, you go to the battle zone and watch, ask questions, learn and listen,’ reporting what you see to the readers, radio listeners or television watchers. And you kept in mind that caveat: truth is the first casualty of war. You lived by it.

Until now, that is.

Somewhere in the Administration of George W. Bush, as it planned its final war with Saddam Hussein of Iraq, somebody came up with a radical idea. Don’t push the reporters away all time; it might be better to keep them near to you, a concept similar to the old Italian axiom of 'keeping your friends close to you, and your enemies closer.'

If these rough and tumble journalists want the war close-up, first-hand, well let’s give it to them, both barrels. Here’s what we’ll do; we’ll attach a reporter to each military division. And they will have a photographer, too.

We’ll put these journalists right in there, right where they can see how well we’re doing. They’ll show the whole world this is a just war with an evil enemy leading the repressed Iraqi people, people who’ll show the world that Americans are good and kind even as soldiers and prove by first-hand information that the United States is fighting a battle of liberation for these people, not a war of conquest.

Watching the Americans winning the war would of course be like watching great drama as it unfolded. But anyone who has watched even a little of this unusual war can see the difference. Live war is, after all, really, truly live.

This ‘embedding’ of journalists with the troop divisions couldn’t be done the last time America went to war in Iraq, or in Vietnam, Korea, or World War II. Aside from the fact that the idea itself is a radical departure from the military’s traditional desire to keep its battlefield functions secret, the technology to try such an experiment didn’t exist.

Now, American air strikes are a sort of long-range earth removal exercise. They are precise enough to flail away at Saddam’s two-mile-long palace complex and his suspected caches of arms without hitting any of the rest of Baghdad. That is breathtaking. And confidence in such technology clearly outweighed concerns that the battlefield reporting might prove embarrassing.

American guns, artillery, tanks, night fighting equipment and satellite surveillance are hugely advanced from those of Iraq and even from the stuff Americans themselves used the last time it fought a war against Hussein. So it is only natural that the United States should bring along all these great reportorial assets, so that they can reflect the glory of American fighting men using their gadgets, right?

Wrong.

These reporters are "embedded" within the fighting ranks, true. But they are not "Stars and Stripes" reporters for the historically famous Army newspaper. No. They are working reporters who are supposed to tell their newspaper subscribers or TV watchers back home what is actually happening. No, of course they are not supposed to reveal things that the enemy needs – their location, number, movements, objectives – but being reporters first and foremost, they are supposed to tell what’s happening without jeopardizing U.S. troops. And they are supposed to tell it as bluntly as possible.

A bit tricky, granted, but still quite thrilling stuff.

There it is, like a computer game in your own living room – a real, live war. Now, however, the war has turned. It isn’t the cavalcade of tanks hurdling at Baghdad, wind in the hair, sand blowing in the background, Iraqi people cheering.

Street warfare in the cities is likely now. Dirty, close quarters battles, with lots of civilians in the way, in cities where tanks will be less dominant and even the smartest bomb in America’s arsenal cannot separate friend from foe in door to door combat. Where will the "embedded" reporters be at this juncture?

Will they report and film through the streets of Baghdad, or will their commanding officers tell them to stop, for everyone’s safety? And for the comfort of the high command.

What happens if or when biological or chemical weapons are used?

Sure, the commanding officers of the Americans can tell their "embedded" reporters to go away or turn off their cameras, but despite prior and unique agreements, this puts the reporters in a bind, a conflict from which they will find a way out, either now or later by doing what they do; i.e., reporting. The Army officer is not truly the reporter’s boss; his publisher and editor, and by extension his audience are his ultimate bosses.

Should the Army officer tell the cameraman to shut down his camera and the reporter to stop reporting, the officer is himself in a quandary. He has sworn to protect his country, and freedom of the press is not at the top of his list when he and his men are being shot at, yet he too is a citizen, one who is sworn to uphold the Constitution.

What if the reporter comes across a massacre that our side committed? Questions like this are never ending.

This leads to the bottom line question: what are the reporters at the front lines doing there?

Is President Bush so certain of his win that they are the heralds of the empire? Does he wish to show plainly what a wonderful, utopian and humanitarian job America is doing, knowing that the world is watching him, obviously with trepidation?

Whatever the reasons, this is the first war that carries independent reporters and photographers right along with the front line troops. Yet one of the great Constitutional freedoms is the right to publish anything that doesn’t try to forcefully overthrow the American government. This is a fairly clear instruction – until any real-life situation comes along.

We will – at some point – have a dedicated reporter and a harried military commander trying to settle a difference of opinion that eggheads in our famed ‘think tanks’ would have trouble resolving.

Luckily, America still has plenty of regular reporters who need no military authorization to report what they see and hear. They are the ones who, for various reasons, either rejected a chance to be 'embedded' or were never offered the option. They are now being called ‘unilaterals,’ rather than ‘embeds,’ in this unique and strange new war. They are unilaterals because they are able to range freely wherever they may gain access. Of course, the irony is that they are often denied access to front-line areas, sometimes by American authorities, and sometimes by simple wartime circumstances.

All of this illustrates a very specific and basic truth: As the United States goes forth into the new millennia, it will need to keep its press rigorously free and independent. That is because America’s only real restraint on its military and government power now, in this age of American ascendancy, is its citizens, and their ability to determine an opinion is, as always, reliant on the free flow of information. Controlled, managed or manipulated information is the antithesis of this, and that is the crux of the issue facing ‘embedded reporters,’ although so far they do not seem cowed by their military commanders, which is clearly a tribute to both the reporters and the combat officers.

All of this is complicated by the fact the country is stepping on untested ground by fighting Iraq merely on the idea that this desert country might attack America in the future, or that it might be the source of terrorism. Pre-emptive war is a new concept for the U.S., and that is at least one of the reasons American failed to gain solid United Nations support before moving against the Hussein regime.

If the concept of pre-emptive war sells in the U.S., it could lead to even bigger wars in the future, with potentially even less viable reasons.

Currently, a strong and unencumbered press corps is the primary if not the only check and balance device left for the public to rely upon, since Congress seems completely dominated by President Bush’s political party, which results in a constant flow of official information that reflects the Bush Administration's point-of-view, allowing much of the largely conservative mainstream press to comfortably print the GOP viewpoint without serious analysis, and this affords professionally conservative media pundits, in print and on the airwaves, an open-ended opportunity to substantiate their reactionary views by basing them on current stories published by traditional news outlets.

That current phenomenon presents a very disturbing conundrum for journalists or anyone who desires to see a balance of viewpoints in America's public dialogue, and it is important to remember, in this context, that conservative pundits and talk-show hosts outnumber all other media commentators, in all forms of communication.

It was in this remarkable press atmosphere that President Bush and his advisors and planners let journalists into the midst of the military, perhaps out of over-confidence or hubris, and in the end that may provide the impetus that will move the political discussion in America in ways that will not be able to be controlled, much less anticipated. What they may well have overlooked is that reporters will report, and if they are suppressed they will find a means of getting their information into the public domain, even if it is delayed.