But for the first three days of war, there was no information. The media dog was chasing its own tail: Russians were interviewing Americans interviewing Arabs interviewing French about the silence of the generals.

Then, yesterday, in the sleek blue-and-metallic briefing room, the flat-screen plasma TVs flickered into life. Lieutenant Mark Kitchens marched to the dead center of the stage and ordered a two-minute warning: All cellphones were to be be turned off.

General Tommy Franks strode into the room. It was clear that this dusty outpost had finally become media central when a newcomer rose to ask the first question. It was George Stephanopoulos.

As the clock counted down to Franks's first public appearance, some reporters became a bit giddy. When one correspondent, Kelly O'Donnell, stood up in front of the room and delivered a bland lead-in to NBC's camera, they burst into cheers and applause. Others came out swinging. One reporter from Abu Dhabi television asked Franks if the US assertions that Iraq has chemical weapons were ''a big lie.''

To reach the center, reporters drive 12 miles from the capital, Doha. They undergo a body scan that requires guards to ask female journalists if they are pregnant. They wait in a razor-wire-topped pen for a bus that takes them 200 yards to the center, also ringed with wire.

Inside, Qatari reporters in spotless white dishdashas and red keffiyehs mingle with Japanese cameramen who had slept in a tent outside. A French reporter who had been booted from the base for illegal cellphone use - his case not helped, soldiers said, by his nationality - was allowed to return yesterday. New vendors seemed to arrive hourly.

There were cafe lattes, Subway sandwiches, Camp As Sayliyah shirts, stuffed camels, and teddy bears with T-shirts that said: Someone in Qatar Loves You.

Clarifying some of Franks's points after the briefing, a US Navy captain, Frank Thorp, strained to concentrate as a British cameraman loudly practiced and re-practiced his on-camera spiel.

Thorp denied that there had been tension between US public-relations officers and their British and Australian counterparts, who had decided a day earlier that it was time to ''get on with it,'' and then started actually talking to reporters.

''We all came here to tell stories,'' he said. ''We're fine.''

This story ran on page A29 of the Boston Globe on 3/23/2003.
© Copyright 2003 Globe Newspaper Company.