Hollywood ? “Baghdad Diary” gives us two men, two cameras and the beginning stages of the U.S. invasion of Iraq – the hopeful days when some Americans and some Iraqis thought toppling Saddam Hussein would swiftly transform Iraq and the world for the better.

Craig White was a cameraman for NBC News teamed with David Bloom – both of them professionals chasing the biggest news story in the world.

Fadil Kadom was a cab driver in Baghdad who decided to chronicle the experiences of his family as they sought shelter from the U.S. “shock and awe” bombing attack that was the expected prelude to an overland assault.

His mother flees to Syria. Kadom decides that he and his wife and children will stay. He locks up his home and finds refuge for his family in a house considered far enough away from the target areas.

“We stayed on the ground floor in hopes the second floor will shield us from light bombing and shrapnel,” Kadom says.

Meanwhile, 850 miles away, in the Kuwaiti desert, young American soldiers nervously wait for the invasion to begin.

White and Bloom were embedded with the Army’s 315th Battalion, 3rd Infantry Division. A youngish-looking officer, Col. Stephen Twitty, has taken a liking to them and provided unrestricted access to his troops. In one of the more telling moments, Twitty explains that the American attack is aimed at the regime, not the Iraqi people.

“We have an obligation to treat people with dignity and respect,” he says.

“Baghdad Diary,” which airs this month on the History Channel (Sunflower Broadband Channel 54), follows the progress of the journalists with their sophisticated gear and the cabbie with the camcorder given to him by a Norwegian reporter for whom he had worked as a translator.

The footage is up-close, vivid and highly personal. The fear and confusion of Kadom’s family is heart-rending as they hunker down in hopes the violence will stop.

If you’ve been living in a cave without cable television since early 2003 or if you have an interest in reliving those first days and weeks of the war, then “Baghdad Diary” is for you. But if you don’t fit in either of those groups, it could be heavy slogging.

At two hours, it’s long. A lot of journalism, print and broadcast, has covered the same material – the plight of the Iraqi civilians, the courage of the U.S. soldiers.

“Baghdad Diary” is too late to be timely and too early to be a good retrospective. Some day, when the war is no longer front-page news, this well-crafted documentary will serve as a reminder of how a slow, bloody and complex campaign to win the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people began as a plan for a quick knockdown of a tyrant. But that day is not today, nor does it seem close at hand.

With narration by ABC newsman Bob Woodruff, who was wounded while covering the war, “Baghdad Diary,” at the end, tries to bring the story up to date: the looting, the insurgency, the daily violence in the streets, and so forth. White has made several return trips; Kadom has kept his camcorder rolling. But the most compelling footage from both is at the beginning.

The assault is on. In Baghdad, prayer and fear have taken hold.

“God willing, Iraq will be safe,” says one of Kadom’s family members.

“God willing,” says another.