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Paul Workman reported on the Iraq war from its start in 2003. Nine years later, with the final convoy of U.S. troops having left the country, he looks back on his time covering the conflict.

We waited almost three months for the war to begin, staying in a "dry" but luxurious hotel, practicing for a gas attack against a stop watch, drinking bootleg vodka out of a water bottle, watching with amazement -- and anticipation -- as the Americans and the British turned an empty expanse of Kuwaiti desert into a vast, military holding zone.

More tents, more tanks, more trucks, more guns, more troops; it just kept coming. I don't know a single correspondent who doubted what was about to happen. There had been too much build-up, too much mongering, too much bellicose beating of the drum to save Saddam Hussein's neck and spoil George Bush's victory.

Memory flashes: Kuwaiti man with a falcon on his arm, under a deep blue desert sky. Irish soldier -- fully dressed -- showing correspondents how the troops bathed in the desert; a ridiculous dog and pony show. Dan Rather in a khaki war-correspondent jacket with lots of pockets; it looked brand new. Shopping for a four-wheel drive then loading it with a generator, cans of gasoline, water and food; supplies for the front line. Sneaking through a Kuwaiti checkpoint by pretending we were American Special Forces; we couldn't believe it worked. Hiding out in a farmhouse at the border and waiting for the shock and awe to begin.

Only we didn't know it would be "shock and awe." That was a new American term, like "embedding" and "collateral damage." Did I think the war was just? I certainly believed Saddam Hussein was a despicable man who had tortured and tormented his own people and deserved to be eliminated. But the context seemed wrong, the reason for going to war too contrived. Not that it mattered, because there was too much hardware in the desert to call the whole thing off, and Saddam Hussein certainly wasn't going to slip quietly into the night. We cringed and worried and took shelter when he fired missiles into Kuwait and then we headed into the unknown after the first American bombs fell on Baghdad.

The Iraqis we met were hostile -- and hungry. They mobbed around aid trucks delivering food, until there was chaos; neighbour fighting neighbour for a package containing flour, rice and a jug of cooking oil. They hated Kuwaitis for their wealth; they hated us for what we had and they didn't -- namely gasoline, a nice vehicle and money. How many times I felt young hands groping at my pockets for something to steal.

Was I afraid? Only once, in Basra, when the windows of our car were smashed by a crowd that may have been egged on by Saddam provocateurs, or they simply wanted the cans of fuel and cases of water that were on our rooftop -- and not very well camouflaged. It was probably crazy to even think of going there, but it seemed safe at the time. You always second guess those decisions.

Let's make that afraid a few times: When a British officer warned that our roadside campsite was in danger of being attacked and we fled like nervous rabbits, leaving tents, sleeping bags and assorted camping gear scattered in our frantic wake. (I later saw an Iraqi man selling it). When we came across the burned-out wreckage of a vehicle and were told the journalists inside had been killed there a day earlier -- we decided not to go any farther. When I went to relieve myself under a culvert and realized, once my pants were down, that I might very well be squatting in a minefield. We were supposed to be pushing for Baghdad -- first one in gets the Gemini -- but truth be told, I really didn't want to go driving blindly into whatever danger might lie ahead. We had enough of that where we were.

That was my war, as it came rushing back this week watching the last American soldiers withdraw from Baghdad -- three months of waiting, and then several weeks of going back and forth across the border, never getting more than a hundred kilometers inside the country. And envious of those embedded journalists who travelled with American troops and made it all the way to Saddam's palace.

"Iraq war draws to a quiet close," said the headline in the Washington Post. It felt ignominious, but I wish I could have been there, to see all that military hardware, all those tanks, trucks and troops going in the other direction.

What did Barack Obama say about ending the war responsibly? "We must be as careful getting out of Iraq as we were careless getting in." The same president who said, "I'm not opposed to all wars. What I am opposed to is a dumb war."

He stopped using that term after he got elected -- out of respect for the troops who fought there -- but I suspect his belief hasn't changed. Instead he now says: Let history be the judge. Neatly done, Mr. President.

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