The day the statue fell

On April 9, 2003, we all saw the broadcast images of happy Iraqis toppling the colossal statue of Saddam Hussein in Baghdad’s Firdos Square. It was a perfect "Mission Accomplished" moment tailor made for TV. I remember thinking at the time that it seemed a bit too perfect. We’re now learning that it was. In a well-researched piece, New Yorker writer Peter Maass reports that the toppling was largely staged for the cameras. He also indicts the Western media for erroneously covering it like the Allied victory parade down the Champs-Élysées in WWII Paris. Maass, who was there, described the day the statue fell as an “illusional intermission between invasion and insurgency.”

Maass writes:

“The toppling of Saddam’s statue turned out to be emblematic of primarily one thing: the fact that American troops had taken the center of Baghdad. That was significant, but everything else the toppling was said to represent during repeated replays on television—victory for America, the end of the war, joy throughout Iraq—was a disservice to the truth. Yet the skeptics were wrong in some ways, too, because the event was not planned in advance by the military. …

Very few Iraqis were there. If you were at the square, or if you watch the footage, you can see, on the rare occasions long shots were used, that the square was mostly empty. ... Closeups filled the screen with the frenzied core of the small crowd and created an illusion of wall-to-wall enthusiasm throughout Baghdad. It was an illusion that reflected only the media’s yearning for exciting visuals.”

Read the entire article here. It's an excellent first draft of history.