REPORT SHOWS IRAQI DEFIANCE, MEDIA CIRCUS.

Byline: David Kronke TV Critic

INITIALLY, ``Baghdad on the Brink,'' war correspondent Peter Arnett's latest missive from Iraq for the series ``National Geographic Explorer,'' seems more concerned with Arnett's celebrity than with the impending conflagration in the Middle East.

Narration exalts Arnett, his courage for staying in Baghdad during the last Gulf War, his acceptance by the Iraqi people, his news hound's nose - enough already, you're likely to mutter; let's cut to the chase.

Thankfully, it does. Arnett's still bopping around Baghdad, a city he seems to find in massive denial - there's little sense of an impending attack. Arnett interviews an Iraqi soccer star, tails United Nations weapons inspectors on wild chases through Baghdad streets (inspectors hoping their careening around town might catch a munitions plant off guard, not to mention shake the pesky media) and answers belligerent questions from skeptical university students, who embrace Osama bin Laden, perhaps with more genuine warmth than they do their dictatorial leader, Saddam Hussein. Still, no one seems to exude any hostility toward Arnett; in fact, most folks are downright chummy with this representative of Hussein's avowed foe.

Interviews with Iraqis are vexing - citizens mouth blandly positive bromides about Hussein, but given the regime's history, what would one expect them to say? Ironically, the soccer star observes of Americans, ``They are a dominated people and told what to think by their government.''

``Baghdad on the Brink'' offers glimpses of the difficulty of gathering news in an environment so tightly controlled by the government - Western correspondents, for example, are forced to report from a single rooftop location, denying viewers much of a look at the remainder of the city. And the media melee that resulted when Iraq released its thousands upon thousands of pages of reports insisting the country was squeaky clean is pretty embarrassing; these guys are carrying on like paparazzi covering a seance for Princess Di hosted by Michael Jackson and Nicole Kidman.

As the point of no return looms ever closer and the rhetoric falls victim to its own brand of global warming, Arnett's not really getting much in the way of hard news in Baghdad. But he is offering a little context to the situation and putting a human face on our purported enemy, things that will likely disappear in TV coverage once - is it too late to still say ``if?'' - hostilities commence.

BAGHDAD ON THE BRINK - Three stars

What: Peter Arnett's reports from Iraq continue in this National Geographic Explorer special.

Where: MSNBC.

When: 5 and 8 tonight.

In a nutshell: Intriguing glimpse of Iraqis confronting impending war and the media circus preceding it.