"Regardless, no one is allowed to be armed except for Iraqi police and Coalition forces. There is no such thing as an armed Iraqi escort for journalists"

Err.. no. Under Iraqi law, everyone was allowed to keep one gun at home. These guns were mostly AK-47s (because that was what was issued to the army). See http://johnrlott.tripod.com/armediraqis.html for example discussion of this.

I believe there was an attempt to change this law during 2007, but confiscation was not widely enforced and the law has since been changed back.