APRIL 9

Malcom Lagauche

Four years ago, many of us awoke to see Saddam Hussein’s statue being torn down in Baghdad. The media ate it up. This was as eventful as the tearing down of the Berlin Wall, George Bush stated. Iraq was free, most pundits wrote or spoke. The U.S. proved its naysayers to be wrong. Baghdad had fallen with a minimal loss of U.S. lives. A democratic Iraq was just over the horizon. What you saw wasn’t real. Saddam’s statue was not torn down by Iraqis. The event was staged and well-rehearsed by the U.S. military. The "crowd" comprises U.S. military personnel and tanks, and about 50 or so journalists who were alerted in the Palestinian Hotel, near the venue, to come a witness this historic event. This definitely was no popular action on behalf of the Iraqi people. It appears that the "experts" who assessed the implications of the statue coming down were all wrong. The U.S. military was not met with a flower-throwing public; almost 3500 U.S. soldiers, 1000 U.S. civilian "security" personnel; and hundreds of other foreign nationals have been killed since April 9, 2003. Tens of thousands of U.S. soldiers have been severely wounded since that date. There is no democracy in Iraq. There is no government in Iraq. There is no peace in Iraq. It looks like the experts were a little premature in their basking in glory...

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