Collateral Damage is organized around key military operations on the battlefield - convoys, checkpoints, detentions, raids, suppressive fire, and "hearts and minds". Hedges and Al-Arian uncover how the very conduct of the war and occupation have turned the American forces into agents of terror for most Iraqis. The military convoys that speed through the centers of towns, often driving on the wrong side of the street or on sidewalks, have become trains of death. Soldiers fire upon Iraqi vehicles with impunity at checkpoints; pregnant women being rushed to the hospital have been killed at roadblocks when their husbands failed to slow down, and children have watched in horror as their parents have been killed.