Here's the wide angle shot of that famous photo of Saddam's statue

[acmavm]

being pulled down. Pass this around to all those stupid enough to be celebrating Iraqi Freedom Day or whatever the hell they're calling it.

[katinmn]

1. The same PR flacks, probably from Texas, coined the term "Freedom Day"

Sad irony for the Iraqis!

[LostInAnomie]

2. That's hilarious and disgusting at the same time.

Too bad these aren't the images that everyone sees. All day it is going to be nothing but the statue being pulled down and the "Happy Iraqi's", as Rumsfeld puts it, hitting it in the face with their shoes.

[keopeli]

3. Photo of Saddam Statue Propoganda

Thanks for the photo find, acmavm. This photo shows the truth of the WH propoganda.

[evermind]

4. A US Army internal study admitted this was a psy-op

A U.S. Army internal study of the war reveals, according to a report in the Los Angeles Times, that as the Iraqi regime was collapsing that day, U.S. Marines converged on Firdos Square in central Baghdad. It was a Marine colonel who decided to topple the statue, the Army report said, with the PSYOP team making it appear to be a spontaneous Iraqi action.

First, the colonel, who was not named in the report, selected the statue as a "target of opportunity." Then the PSYOP team used loudspeakers to encourage Iraqi civilians, many of them young people, to assemble and assist.

But Marines had already draped an American flag over the statue's face. "God bless them, but we were thinking from PSYOP school that this was just bad news," the PSYOP member wrote in the report. "We didn't want to look like an occupation force." A PSYOP sergeant quickly replaced the American flag with an Iraqi flag.

"Ultimately," the Los Angeles Times report concluded, "a Marine recovery vehicle toppled the statue with a chain, but the effort appeared to be Iraqi-inspired because the PSYOP team had managed to pack the vehicle with cheering Iraqi children."

Unfortunately, the url for that is now subscription only ( http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000562754 ) but the original LA Times story is online in several places, for example at http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0703-02.htm

I don't think the guy in the picture is really Chalabi, though ;)