CNN reporters Nic Robertson and Rym Brahimi expelled from Baghdad

NEW YORK -- Four CNN staffers constituting the last staff members of a U.S.-based TV network left in Baghdad were ordered out of the country Friday by Iraqi authorities.

The timing was particularly bad for CNN, leaving the cable news network without correspondents Nic Robertson and Rym Brahimi just before the city was battered with bombs that made for gripping television pictures.

CNN would not talk about why its team, which also includes producer Ingrid Formanek and photographer Brian Puchaty, was expelled.

They planned to head for the Jordanian border "at the first possible moment, when it's safe," spokeswoman Christa Robinson said.

CNN reporters have been ordered out of the country at least three times since the Baghdad bureau opened in 1990, she said.

Robertson and Brahimi had remained in the Iraqi capital after other American news networks sent their correspondents out for safety reasons. Some news services, such as Associated Press Television News and British networks, remain.

The best video of American airstrikes was captured Friday by two Arabic news networks, Al-Jazeera and Abu Dhabi Television, and was shown repeatedly by U.S. television networks.

Veteran war correspondent Peter Arnett, a reporter for MSNBC National Geographic Explorer who has become NBC News' chief eyes in Baghdad, described to Tom Brokaw watching 10 major buildings destroyed before his eyes in a matter of minutes.

"It's just like out of an action movie, but this is real," Arnett said.

"This is 'shock and awe,"' he said, using U.S. officials' phrase to describe their planned firepower.

After ABC News ordered its staff members out of Baghdad earlier this week, the network has been relying on 27-year-old freelance journalist Richard Engel. His breathless reporting was coaxed along by veteran anchor Peter Jennings.

"I'm watching half of Baghdad, it seems like, being destroyed," Engel said. "Maybe that's an exaggeration. That's what it looks like to me right now. This downtown government side is just being devastated. It is being pummeled. Right in front of me."

Interrupted Jennings: "Richard, take a deep breath. Take a deep breath. Hang on for a second."

A few hours after the CNN journalists were ordered out, the network hired freelancer May Ying Welsh. She described some of the fear that Engel -- and most others in Baghdad -- must have been feeling when the bombs were falling.

"You hear it and it sounds like it's coming toward you," Welsh said. "It shrieks as it goes by. Right now I'm sure the people of this city are huddling in their homes and hoping and praying that this bombing is going to end soon."

The networks stayed with the story for most of Friday. CBS aired NCAA basketball for about half of a game, but interrupted when the intense bombing of Baghdad began.

During one extraordinary passage Friday, NBC's Brokaw nearly broke down during an interview with the mother of Marine Capt. Jay Aubin, killed Thursday in a helicopter crash in Iraq.

Nancy Chamberlain, of Winslow, Maine, said she admired television networks and their war coverage, but for families of the military, "it's murder."

"It's heartbreak," she said. "We can't leave the television. Every tank, every helicopter -- 'is that my son?' And I just need you to be aware that technology is, it's great, but there are moms, there are dads, there are wives out there that are suffering because of this. That's all. That's why I'm doing this."

The eyes of Brokaw, and some of the retired military officials who joined him on the set in New York, got misty.

"It's inappropriate for me to become this emotional about it," Brokaw said.