THINKING FOR OURSELVES

Falling in Baghdad

By Shea Howell

Michigan Citizen, April 15-21, 2007

This week marks the passage of four years since the fall of Baghdad to the U.S. military when the “Shock and Awe” campaign directed by Donald Rumsfeld came to its dramatic conclusion as tanks rolled through the streets of one of the oldest cities on earth.

The image that captures this moment in the minds of many Americans was the toppling of the 20 foot statue of Saddam Hussein in Firdus Square. This image was meant to simultaneously convey U.S. triumph, the impotence of Saddam, and the joy in Baghdad over the arrival of American troops.

Before a small crowd of international journalists and about 100 Iraqi militia, US soldiers placed chains around the neck and outstretched arm of the statue, tied it to an armored vehicle, pulled it down and dragged it to the ground. Initially a soldier had placed an American Flag on the statue’s head. Facing criticism that this might be viewed as an inflammatory symbol, the U.S. flag was replaced with an Iraqi one. Surrounding this event were images of Iraqis celebrating at Saddam’s plunge into the dust, dancing and kicking at the fallen image.

Within a few days we learned that the whole event had been staged as a photo op. It turned out that many of the photos circulated world-wide had been doctored to make the celebrating crowds of Iraqis appear bigger than they actually were.

Like so much else about this war, the fall of Baghdad was surrounded by orchestrated efforts to obscure facts, manufacture lies and manipulate emotions. All too soon it became clear that Baghdad had really fallen not into the hands of American troops but into chaos. The U.S. was as impotent as Saddam in stopping the slide toward civil war and there has been no joy in the deployment of an occupation army.

Today nearly 100 Iraqis die every day. On virtually every dimension of life, from infant mortality to death by violence, life in Iraq has become worse than before the fall of Baghdad. The normal routines of daily life - prayer, school, shopping, going to work, playing with children and gossiping with neighbors - have all turned deadly. People disappear into crowded prisons and secret torture chambers.

It is this reality that compelled tens of thousands of Iraqis to take to the streets of the holy city of Najaf this week to mark the anniversary of the fall of Baghdad. They did not come because they were “ordered to” as much of the press reported. They came to demand an end to the U.S. occupation. Organized by Moktada al-Sadr, the young Shiite cleric who has increased his following by his strong anti-occupation stance, the rally was a much more realistic expression of the will of the Iraqi people than anything orchestrated by the U.S.

Like the photo op staged four years ago, flags played a prominent part in this demonstration. This time American flags were burned and ripped apart. Iraqi flags were carried proudly, large ones that took teams of people to hold, small ones in the hands of children or draped over elders in wheel chairs.

In a widely-broadcast speech building up to the rally, al-Sadr urged the militias and the army to join together to defeat “your arch-enemy.” He concluded by saying “In the end, I renew my demands for the withdrawal of the occupier from our land.”

This demonstration says more about the future of Iraq and the futility of the U.S. presence than anything staged by an isolated president, able only to send more people to their deaths.

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