Every morning in the bureau the staff and I sit together and discuss the plans for the day. Together we read the morning papers then decide on our plan.

Sounds simple enough. It's not.

It goes a little something like this.

"I need to talk to this family for my story," I mention. Easy. Go to the family, talk to them, come back and write a story.

No it's to dangerous, I'm usually told. Every time I leave the bureau as a foreign reporter we map out the route. What neighborhood can we drive through, where can I get out of the car and interview people in my Lebanese accent or whispered English in my translator's ear? There aren't that many places left for me. Everyone knows when a stranger enters the neighborhood. With my dark complexion from my Lebanese roots, I blend better, but now Iraqis don't blend in the parts of the capital they don't belong. Most stick to their neighborhoods and work places, never dallying or wandering through the capital.

A few days ago we decided to drive through Al Nisoor square, near the shopping district of Mansour in Baghdad. Seemed harmless enough, our security advisor raised his eyebrows but gave in to my pleas. I put a scarf over my hair and we headed out in two cars, one to block anyone who might chase us home. I sat with my translator and driver and looked at the place where Blackwater, the private security company that protects U.S. diplomats, is accused of killing 11 civilians. Among those civilians was a family of three: a baby, a mother and a father. The woman was a doctor I found out, a rare commodity in a place where most professionals have fled.

We drove through the square, which actually is a traffic circle. I saw where the convoy would have been driving up the road before turning to go against traffic. The circle was in front of them and we drove around the traffic circle where the cars would've been stopped to let them pass. The same spot where that white car came under fire, burst into flames and a baby died before he lived. The white car they were in is pushed to the side of the road, a burned shadow of itself. Eight people died instantly, the Ministry of Interior spokesman said, three more died in the hospital.

"Can I get down to talk to a few people," I asked.

"No not now," my Iraqi colleague, Mohammed, said. "Something weird is going on."

So I settled for driving through the circle once more to get the description I needed for a future story. Suddently commandos were motioning to each other and running through the roads. I was absorbed in multi-tasking a phone call from my boss and looking out the window at the now infamous intersection.

"Go faster," I heard Mohammed tell the driver. "Let's go."

He spotted the men moving quickly and he rushed us away. Twelve minutes later the commandos found a car bomb. It never detonated.

But you never know when you go out what awaits. Maybe you pass through that same spot where one day earlier everything was fine, but today it's the spot for the almost daily car bombs, mortars or roadside bombs in the capital.

It's a risk you weigh. Sometimes you take it and pray everything will be ok, other days you worry and stay home.

But the burden is always there. What happens if I send a reporter somewhere for a story and they never come back? What happens if I go somewhere and never come back?

Tomorrow we make those decisions again. I hope they are the right ones.