THERE has never been a shortage of young men and women willing to risk their lives to report wars. The dilemma for them, and for editors deploying journalistic troops, is deciding how any military conflict and its aftermath is to be covered, and from where.

As 26,000 soldiers, sailors and airmen head for the Gulf, hundreds of reporters are pleading for a very few accredited slots with military units. Coveted as these places are, however, they have limited value to a newspaper.

Accredited reporters may get an insight into military planning, but they will be kept well away from the real action and be expected to do what they are told. And although they have little chance of catching a stray bullet — their unit commander will put their safety high on the list of priorities — they will find their restricted access frustrating.

“This time, all media policy will be directed by the Americans. I find that unacceptable,” says Robert Fox, defence correspondent for the London Evening Standard. He believes that neither the Government nor journalists have explained the complex implications of war against Saddam well enough. “The easy bit is dropping bombs on the Republican Guard. The complicated bit is what happens then. It will be like dropping a hammer on a mosaic. It will shatter,” he says.

Foreign editors who send reporters to Baghdad face the added concern of chemical weapons being used against journalists. Small fortunes are being spent sending correspondents, too young to have experienced National Service, on courses to learn how to deal with this eventuality, as well as learning how to survive in a hostile environment.

Kitting a reporter out with a nuclear, biological and chemical warfare (NBC) suit, gas mask and flak jacket costs about £3,000, but as one seasoned reporter comments, filters in some of these masks are already out of date and the carbonated linings of NBC suits have a shelf life of just a few weeks. “Also, how do you know when to put them on? Nobody is going to tell you that some deadly nerve gas has just been released.”

Jitters notwithstanding, to withdraw a correspondent from Baghdad, as Max Hastings did when he was Editor of The Daily Telegraph, would be to invite criticism. Says Hastings, now Sir Max: “Pulling Wendy Holden out of Baghdad was the most serious mistake I made while I was Editor. It tarnished our pride in the coverage of the story.

“The view I took was that if our country was to be a belligerent, it seemed wrong for one of our reporters to be there where she would see only what Saddam Hussein wanted her to see.” Hastings, who covered 11 wars as a reporter, including the Falklands conflict, says he never lost sleep over sending reporters into danger. “If they had been killed, I would have felt very sad but I wouldn’t feel guilty. They would have been doing what they wanted to do. It’s exhilarating to know that the eyes of the world are on you and that every word you write is going to be read.”

The reporters who do best will be those who operate on their own without accreditation. They will also face the most danger. “The brave and the bold will get great stories but some might well get their heads blown off,” he says.

Few experienced war reporters are gung-ho about their jobs. Faced with the threat of chemical weapons, for example, the Times reporter Anthony Loyd won’t be hanging about. “I’m not going to risk having children with terrible birth defects somewhere down the line,” he says.

Loyd, 36, who was a platoon commander in the Royal Greenjackets, will head for northern Iraq. “The Kurdish story is an interesting one with all the pressures they are under outside Iraq. That area will be a staging point for Allied forces and you will also get Iraqi defectors to talk to. I haven’t opted to go to Baghdad, because there you get an Iraqi minder and it’s very difficult to report. And I reckon Saddam will either throw reporters out or use them as human shields.”

He has grave misgivings about the impending war. “I have never faced an assignment where I am so confused about the rights and wrongs of the issue.

“With the war in Afghanistan, the public and the press were more or less cohesive. This time there is one huge divide. I’m anticipating quite acrimonious schisms opening up between journalists operating on the ground and subs and editors in the office.”

It won’t stop any of them going, though. As Hastings says: “Sometimes I was bloody terrified — but the adrenaline high is extraordinary.”