THE battle for the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people has taken on a sinister new meaning. As I write this, both sides are accusing the other of firing the rocket (or rockets) which killed innocent civilians in a district of Baghdad, populated by mainly impoverished Iraqis, the very ones the so-called coalition forces are there to 'liberate'.

The Iraqi military says it was an American or British weapon which was fired, either deliberately or mistakenly, into a civilian area. The Americans, on the other hand, were hinting that it was an Iraqi ground-to air anti-aircraft missile which malfunctioned. Whatever the truth, and little of that is actually spoken in any war, innocent Iraqi civilians died.

Among the oceans of words written and spoken about this conflict, none has had the passion and brain-searing accuracy of those filed by Robert Fisk, Middle East correspondent for The Independent.

His report of the effects of that bombing -- a mother and three children incinerated in their car; workmen blown to pieces -- made harrowing reading and would be powerful evidence for the anti-war faction.

It is hard to know what the UK public thinks of this war of liberation, launched, so we were told, to rid the region of an evil dictator, who threatened the stability of the Middle East with his arsenal of chemical and biological weapons.

Those with family members among our servicemen and women in the Gulf will be suffering agonies, but the opinions of people with whom I have exchanged views vary from disgust at what they consider to be an wholly unlawful and immoral war, to 'boredom' with the whole scenario and the hope that the conflict is brought to a swift and satisfactory conclusion.

When I ask what they see as a 'satisfactory conclusion', many answers repeat the views of Messrs Blair and Bush: freeing the Iraqis from a grip of terror and restoring their country to economic and social stability.

That would be all well and good were the people actually waiting to be liberated. We've only the assurances of George Dubya and Saint Anthony for that. It is to be hoped that this is the case, as much egg is going to be left on certain faces if a post-Saddam Iraq is populated with bands of guerillas determined to make the Yanks and Brits pay for their 'occupation'. In other words, Northern Ireland with sunshine.

And where are the weapons of mass destruction? Is Saddam a threat to world peace or merely a tinpot dictator with delusions of grandeur? We'll probably never know.

But one thing is for certain. Keep killing civilians, something the coalition forces set out NOT to do, and the battle for the hearts and minds will be lost. After all you need a whole body, not just bits of one, to contain a heart and mind.