Tuesday was the 10-year anniversary of the fall of Baghdad by invading US troops, marked infamously by the pulling down of the statue of Saddam Hussein in Baghdad’s Firdous Square.
The event is still treated in the media as a pivotal, symbolic moment in the Iraq War when ordinary Iraqis, freed by valorous American soldiers, triumphantly tore down the tyrannical image of the dictator.
But it has been confirmed over and over again that the event was staged by the US Marines psychological operations teams who knew the propaganda value of such a photo op.
Marking the 10-year anniversary of the statue’s toppling, The Associated Press described the memorable event: “Joyful Iraqis helped by an American tank retriever pulled down their longtime dictator, cast as 16 feet of bronze. The scene broadcast live worldwide became an icon of the war, a symbol of final victory over Saddam Hussein.”
Unmentioned in the AP report was the fact that “It was a Marine colonel — not joyous Iraqi civilians, as was widely assumed from the TV images — who decided to topple the statue,” as The Los Angeles Times reported back in 2004.
In fact, US soldiers needed to use loud speakers to gather Iraqis around the statue – a necessary ingredient if the choreographed propaganda effort was to be convincing.
“It was a quick-thinking Army psychological operations team that made it appear to be a spontaneous Iraqi undertaking,” The Times report added.
Iraq War advocates, then and now, still cite the event as symbolic of “Operation Iraqi Freedom.” They are more right than they know. The event was symbolic. It was emblematic of the whole Iraq War: a massive lie perpetrated simultaneously on millions of innocent Iraqis and Americans.
I remember watching this event at the time and noting the camera angles. For the most part it was from the view of a camera down at chest level in the crowd, shooting up at the faces of frenzied Iraqis, the camera being bumped and shaken as the "dramatic" event unfolded. Then, a wide shot of the square, nearly empty except for a couple dozen people surrounding a tank and the statue with people walking around casually in the background.
Marketing geniosity at its finest.
Wag The Dog drama in action.
The AP:
It's not called the Ashkenazi Press for nothin.
Any one remember the US old glory being run up the flag pole?
The camera's were already set up, nothing spontaneous occurred.
jamesfingletonwild
I have read somewhere (I cannot seem to find the article – imagine that) that our gvt spent millions to hire a psy-op company to do the statue toppling and this company flew in their own people for the event.