"Freedom Day" in Iraq...Remember the "huge crowd"...

[blitzen]

when they toppled the statue of Saddam? Neither do I, but it must be true because CNN says so:

http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/04/09/iraq.ap/index.html
"Five roadside bombs killed at least three people in Iraq on Sunday -- the three-year anniversary of Baghdad's fall to U.S. forces. The holiday marks the April 9, 2003, event in which a huge crowd of Iraqis cheered as U.S. Marines hauled down the statue of Saddam Hussein on Firdous Square, marking the collapse of his regime."



In truth there were at most several hundred people, half of whom were shipped in by the CIA.

[acmavm]

1. Yeah, I mentioned that photo earlier. The wide angle shot that made a

lie of all their propaganda. Can't find it.


Posted on: Monday, July 5, 2004

U.S. military, not Iraqis, behind toppling of statue

By David Zucchino
Los Angeles Times

<snip>
The U.S. Army's internal study of the war in Iraq criticizes some efforts by its own psychological operations (PSYOP) units, but one spur-of-the-moment effort last year produced the most memorable image of the invasion.

As the Iraqi regime was collapsing on April 9, 2003, U.S. Marines converged on Firdos Square in central Baghdad, site of an enormous statue of Saddam Hussein. It was a Marine colonel — not joyous Iraqi civilians, as was widely assumed from the TV images — who decided to topple the statue, the Army report said. And it was a quick-thinking Army PSYOP team that made it appear to be a spontaneous Iraqi undertaking.

After the colonel — who was not named in the report — selected the statue as a "target of opportunity," the PSYOP team used loudspeakers to encourage Iraqi civilians to assist, according to an account by a PSYOP team member.

But Marines had 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, and some of the Iraqis were saying, 'No, we want an Iraqi flag!' "

http://the.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/2004/Jul/05/mn/mn03a.html

<snip>

FOUND IT!!




http://www.twf.org/News/Y2003/0411-Statue.html

[Lefty48197]

2. War casualties sure put a damper on the Freedom Day celebration

don't they?

[HysteryDiagnosis]

3. Looks like shrub is finally gettin' his trifecta. n/t

[Beelzebud]

4. Didn't Richard Pearle say there would be a statue of Bush there by now?

[Rene]

5. When the stature was being pulled down, the big burly guy

who was pounding on it with the sledge hammer was also in a picture, very close to Chalabi - at the airport in Afghanistan when his 700 man 'army' was flown in to Kuwait and subsequently driven up to Iraq. Chalabi's army was the contingent of 'Iraqi's' around the statue....not regular Iraqi's.
WHERE ARE THOSE 700 MEN NOW. What are they doing for jobs? I believe THEY are the "insurgents" creating unrest --- the ones who looted and stole all the armament from the ammo dumps.
Chalabi should explain where all those men are now.

I thing Chalabi envisioned himself as Iraq's "savior" from the cayous that he has artificially created.