Archive · War Reports

Iraq — Baghdad, 1991 · 1998 · 2003

Argyris Dinopoulos covered Iraq across three periods: the first Gulf War, in 1991, and — for Antenna (ANT1) — pre-war Baghdad, in 1998, and the 2003 war. In the years of international sanctions he recorded the daily life of a country under Saddam Hussein's regime; in 2003 he covered the American invasion and the fall of the city. These assignments produced reports on civilians — above all on the children of the war — and the record of the deaths of foreign correspondents in Baghdad. In this dossier, the videos from Iraq stand beside the city's photographic archive, from 1998 and from 2003.

Argyris Dinopoulos covered the first Gulf War, from January to March 1991, as correspondent for ERT and SKAI 100.4 FM.

Some years later, in 2001, he wrote the book «Η κασέτα του πολέμου» — a novel set in the Middle East during that war.

In 1998 he was in Iraq again, reporting for Antenna, at the dramatic negotiations between the then UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan and Saddam Hussein over access for international inspectors to the Iraqi arsenal.

In 2003, though by then an elected mayor, he went to the second Gulf War as well, after an invitation from Antenna's owner Minos Kyriakou which Argyris Dinopoulos accepted — gladly, it must be said.

The reports from Baghdad covered the air bombardment and the American ground intervention in Iraq that led, in the end, to the overthrow of Saddam Hussein.