[Media-watch] Army stage-managed fall of Hussein statue - LATimes - 3/7/2004

[Julie-ann Davies]

http://www.latimes.com/la-na-statue3jul03,1,7327035.story?coll=la-home-headlines

Army Stage-Managed Fall of Hussein Statue

David Zucchino
The Army's internal study of the war in Iraq criticizes some efforts by
its own psychological operations 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, 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
psychological operations 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 psychological team used
loudspeakers to encourage Iraqi civilians to assist, according to an
account by a unit member.

But Marines had draped an American flag over the statue's face.

"God bless them, but we were thinking . that this was just bad news,"
the member of the psychological unit said. "We didn't want to look like
an occupation force, and some of the Iraqis were saying, 'No, we want an
Iraqi flag!' "

Someone produced an Iraqi flag, and a sergeant in the psychological
operations unit quickly replaced the American flag.

Ultimately, a Marine recovery vehicle toppled the statue with a chain,
but the effort appeared to be Iraqi-inspired because the psychological
team had managed to pack the vehicle with cheering Iraqi children.

- David Zucchino