BAGHDAD - Little by little, as they passed in and out of the military checkpoint outside their office, certain journalists of the Iraqi Media Network fell in love with certain soldiers of the Third Infantry Division.

Notes were passed. Admiring phrases were translated into Arabic. And when the unit was transferred to Fallujah several weeks ago, letters were written about the pain of parting.

Before they shipped out to the Middle East, US soldiers were warned of the dangers of offending Iraqi women, with some instructed not even to make eye contact. Sensitivity about interactions with women has continued to be a flashpoint in the American occupation: The ongoing bloodshed in Fallujah, a Sunni Muslim town west of Baghdad, has been fueled in part by a rumor that soldiers are ogling women's bodies with night-vision goggles, which cannot see through clothing.

But on the sultry streets of Baghdad, where 53,000 American troops are now stationed, soldiers are finding that their interactions with Iraqi women are leading to friendships and, in some cases, romance. With emotions running high during the weeks after Saddam Hussein's regime fell, some soldiers found that relationships developed naturally.

Affections were particularly warm outside the Baghdad Convention Center, where the cosmopolitan staff of the Iraqi Media Network, a television station, moved into new offices guarded by US soldiers, said Josh O'Connor, a freelance producer from North Carolina who now works for the Iraqi station.

''There were a couple [marriage] proposals here and there,'' said O'Connor, 29, who found himself acting as a conduit between his colleagues and soldiers. ''Usually it was the women proposing to the men. Not all of them were accepted.''[...]