Richard Engel's four-plus years in Iraq sound like material for a best-selling novel or an award-winning screenplay.

A freelance broadcast journalist, Engel sneaked into the country (minus a passport) a month before the March 2003 U.S invasion. As major news organizations initially moved out of Iraq, Engel began his reporting vigil, with his early, graphic I-am-here stories showing up on ABC World News.

From the outset, Engel, who joined NBC News in June 2003, began keeping a video diary with his own small camera to record his intimate observations about the devastating war, the difficult living conditions, the life-threatening assignments and his personal associations with a variety of Iraqis.

As Engel tells the camera early in War Zone Diary (8 tonight, MSNBC): "I may even be recording my own obituary."

War Zone Diary surpasses any fiction that could be dreamed up in the studios of Hollywood or the publishing halls of New York.

This is a remarkable film on many levels.

While providing a vivid chronological refresher course on the four-year battle (particularly graphic are scenes of dead bodies piling up in a makeshift Baghdad mortuary) the hour provides an emotional evaluation of the war's impact on Engel, on both professional and personal levels.

War Zone Diary also includes profiles of a variety of Iraqi citizens - the type of coverage seldom, if ever, seen.

While TV's Iraq coverage has included numerous individual reports of life in Iraq, Engel, through both his video diary and regular news footage, provides a strong thread of continuity about events and people that go a long way toward explaining the psyche of the ravaged country.

War Zone Diary is not an ode to personal heroism.

A continuing thread throughout the hour is Engel's constant fear of being killed.

He recounts how, after Saddam Hussein's statue was hauled down, "the rules of the game changed."

"We (U.S. troops and journalists) became the targets."

Regarding his fear of being kidnapped, Engel says: "I would die, running away, getting shot in the back, rather than being beheaded."

The war has taken its toll on Engel, emotionally.

He talks briefly about the collapse of his marriage, almost as if the split was inevitable.

Engel is pessimistic about the future, noting that any resolution will take a long time.

He's also aware of the politics and how it affects GIs.

Some wonder who the enemy is, calling the war "a lost cause."

Others resent the "love-the-troops-but-hate- the-war-philosophy."

"We should be supported all the way," a serviceman tells Engel.

Engel believes journalists go through four stages during Iraqi coverage.

A Superman theory ("nothing will happen to me") is followed by the feeling of danger - "something might happen." The third: "Luck is being pushed and I'll probably get hurt." And the fourth: "I've used up all my nine lives. I'm going to die."

Engel is in stage three - sometimes moving to four.

Bad promotion

If you watched CBS Sunday afternoon, you might have been convinced that the 60 Minutes interview with American Idol's Simon Cowell was the story of the century.

Billy Packer and Jim Nantz plugged it incessantly during the relatively dull Kansas-Kentucky NCAA Tournament game.

Actually, the most important segment of 60 Minutes was Scott Pelley's emotional interview with the U.S. soldier accused of killing 18 Iraqi citizens.

This got little or no mention: Shame on the CBS promotion department.

Casting notes

Bob Newhart may host a new talk series on TBS . . . Raquel Welch has been cast as a retired movie star who moves into an old Hollywood apartment in a comedy planned by CBS. Jeffrey Tambor plays a retired writer.

Today's nostalgia

On March 21, 1982, ABC aired a patriotic special, I Love Liberty, produced by Norman Lear. Guests included Barry Goldwater, Barbra Streisand, Burt Lancaster, Mary Tyler Moore, Martin Sheen and The Muppets, including Miss Piggy.

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