The missiles burned in blinding white, dazzling the camera's eye, and subsided into angry reds and purples, and burning oranges. Huge plumes of smoke clouded into the night sky and were backlit like lightning as the next cruise missile struck home. There were mushroom clouds rolling like thunder into the air, and litter like 9/ 11 rained out of them.
To see the Iraqis' trivial response. They must have thought themselves so brave, firing their anti-aircraft bullets into the sky, defiantly standing up to the Great Satan by trying to bring down his planes. But we in Darlington could see how puny and pathetic their little popguns were. Like cheap supermarket rockets, they twinkled like stars momentarily before drooping in disappointment and fading from view. No damage done to the B-52s that were 1,000 miles away by then.
The shock and awe war of 2003 is in full technicolour, pinks and yellows setting off the browns and greys of the smoke and the sky. It is terrifyingly beautiful; it is in our living rooms but distant.
