PAUL MCGEOUGH, SMH/THE AGE CORRESPONDENT: It hasn't created sympathy amongst the Iraqis for them, but it has raised questions. Questions such as why did it take 200 men more than 4 hours to take over a house in which four men were camping and only after killing them, why weren't they taken alive to be put before a tribunal.

The recent history of Iraq is awash with crimes against humanity and war crimes. There are many Iraqis who wanted to see those cases aired in public and I think a lot of people around the world, experts and others, would argue that Iraq probably needs to go through a process like that as part of the truth or reconciliation process that a country like this needs.

MARK DAVIS: The US troops are now indicating they believe the noose is tightening around Saddam himself, what do ordinary Iraqis feel about this?

PAUL MCGEOUGH: There's a divide. I mean there are those who just want to see him dead and out of the way. In this part of the world, death has a finality in terms of national affairs that speaks loudly.

There are others who insist that he should be brought before a tribunal. They're now learning about things like the Milosevic tribunal in The Hague. They have a sense of what those sort of processes are about and they think that Saddam should be taken alive to be subjected to the same treatment.

MARK DAVIS: Is there a sense that the noose is tightening? Is there a sense that people are getting closer to capturing Saddam?

PAUL MCGEOUGH: Undoubtedly. I mean getting the two sons last week was a huge breakthrough for the Americans.

It demonstrated the extent to which either good luck or good management has allowed them to penetrate Saddam's security network and, if they can get the sons, certainly they can get the father.

MARK DAVIS: But it seems, from all reports, that the US raids and the roadblocks are increasing dramatically. What's the sense of the people? Again, are they behind this move? Is there enthusiasm for this hunt?

PAUL MCGEOUGH: Well, it gives a whole new meaning to reality television. It's consuming people to the extent to whether they will get him or whether they won't get him, and you can see it - it's even consuming the Americans. You can see it in the statements that they're putting out now.

Everything is about how close they're getting, how great a job they're doing in getting closer to him and the information that they're getting on him. The flip side of that is that when they stumble, as they did here in Baghdad yesterday, opening up on a car that inadvertently drove into an area where they were cordoning off a street before launching an attack on a house where they believed Saddam might be, they opened fire and killed, according to witnesses, as many as five people.

And the Americans have said nothing about that incident except that Task Force 20, which is the team pursuing Saddam, was involved.

MARK DAVIS: I guess there's any number of PR disasters unfolding for the Americans at the moment, but are they genuinely surprised at the attacks against them and the level of resistance against them and the general rejection of the American forces?

PAUL MCGEOUGH: They were certainly surprised early in the piece. They didn't expect the level of resistance that they're seeing. They didn't expect the intensity of it. They were quite confident last week that the killing of the sons would take the sting out of the resistance. It hasn't, it has stiffened it.

But now they're more indignant and outraged than surprised by it. I mean, what you're looking at is if this continues, you're looking at the next West Bank or the next Belfast here, and they're not doing anything on the ground here yet to turn that around in their favour.

MARK DAVIS: Well, if the death of Uday and Qusay didn't make any difference, will the death of Saddam make any difference?

PAUL MCGEOUGH: My hunch is that it won't. I think Saddam is finished. There's no succession, he has no organisational structure behind him. Saddam is only a matter of time.

The big question that the Americans have to answer, and they need to answer it very quickly, is the extent to which they're facing an entrenched anti-Americanism that will be the seeds for a long-term, sustained guerilla war campaign.

You compare this place to the West Bank, compare it to Northern Ireland, there's much more ammunition, there are many more weapons available here to a well orchestrated resistance.

There are many more former members of the Iraqi military who are well trained, who would be useful in a resistance, who don't have anything to do at the moment, who can be recruited to a struggle that, as we see in the West Bank and again in Belfast, that only needs hundreds of fighters at any given time to continue what is a debilitating exercise of resistance.

You've got the religious equation here, you've got funds, more funds than the Palestinians or the IRA could ever have hoped for, believed to be available to the resistance here if they want to use them. So, as I said, unless the Americans can turn this around very quickly, my money is on a protracted guerilla campaign here.

MARK DAVIS: Well, this is the nightmare scenario unfolding as some critics, at least, predicted. Can you see an exit for the United States?

PAUL MCGEOUGH: I think it's a holding-breath exercise at this stage. They're not playing it right, they're not playing it well on the ground at the moment. They came in without a plan.

The ordinary Iraqis are mocking in their criticism of the time and effort that went into the planning for the military invasion of Iraq and the obvious absence of any serious planning for what came after the war.

So how they turn the ship around now is anyone's guess but they need the assistance of other countries, they need the assistance of institutions such as the UN agencies that they spurned, that they ridiculed, and you would have to say that reading the various commentaries around the world at the moment, there's a lot of "Well, you wrecked it, you fix it," coming through from Paris, coming through from Moscow, coming through from the UN headquarters in New York, and the Americans are going to have to do a lot of begging and pleading and, more importantly, the thing that they hate the prospect of most, is surrendering some of the power in this place to those who might help it before they get the help that they so desperately need now.

MARK DAVIS: Alright, thanks again, Paul, for your time.