Have you ever seen the shadows left by incinerated bodies? I felt that I must have imagined it, but I smelt it too - the burning bodies.

The Pentagon plans to open the war with two days of intensive bombing of Baghdad and other targets in Iraq - between 300 and 400 cruise missiles each day, each more than were used during the entire 40-day gulf war. This is referred to as "shock and awe" and its explicit objective is psychological destruction of the "enemy's" will to fight. Terror, one might say because there is certainly no distinguishing between civilian and military targets when hundreds of missiles are fired into densely populated areas.

We stood in the dark of the Al Ameriyah shelter. Light came from the ceiling, through an obscene hole with the twisted metal bones of the structure protruding from its grotesque lips. This is the place where a group of Iraqis sought shelter during the bombing of Baghdad in the winter of 1991. On February 13, two U.S. bombs hit the shelter and 408 women and children were killed. The faces of some of the children killed that night are framed and hanging on the blackened walls, close to where the shadows of their bodies are burnt into the floor. Their eyes gaze into ours.

In response to Bush's state of the union address, the Iraq Peace Team had organised a vigil at the shelter. Together with a large number of international media, we were there, holding the banner and helping to read a rebuttal to the most egregious of Bush's lies. The words seemed almost superflous. Beyond all the painstaking and important work of unravelling each of Bush's distortions, the fresh young faces demand of Bush a question for which he has no answer.

The ´shock and awe´ terrorism is already having its effect, even among those who know that they can get away safely. "I hope you are going to be clever and leave before they start," said a CBC reporter to us. "It isn't going to be pretty this time." But the Iraq Peace Team does not intend to leave, and many of the team members here are adjusting to the thought of being under bombardment, making provisions for the time when they will be cut off from the rest of the world like everyone else in Baghdad.

In Amman, Jordan we were urged by the Canadian embassy not to go into Iraq. They warned us not to go into public places, and promised to rescue us - with helicopters and troops, if necessary. They didn't warn us against taking refuge in bomb shelters nor did they explain how helicopters could dodge the cruise missiles. We have been to many public places since we have been here, alone, and in small groups. Not once have we felt the slightest sense of threat. On the contrary. Last night, while walking home, we were hailed by some eager young men speeding by with, "we love you, we love you, we love you!" "We distinguish between you and your governments," explained an Iraqi journalist/translator I met casually a few days ago. Perhaps surprisingly, that does seem to be the general attitude among the people of this beautiful city. But how long can this last?