3 years, 1 month ago
April 9, 2003: Was the toppling of Saddam Hussein's statue a planned media event or a spontaneous act by Iraq'is?
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Rageh Omaar, BBC Correspondent, eye witness to toppling of the statue has described it as "show put on for the media".
His words - "The statue coming down was, to be frank, a useful and easy to comprehend image that was put on for the media to show the toppling of Saddam Hussein. And to have the chance to witness it was exciting. But it's been elevated to more than it deserves. "
Wide angle long-shot of central-Baghdad square when Saddam's statue was pulled down. This incident was depicted hundreds of times in the US media with tight shots on the crowd, shots which disinformed the public to believe that there that been a spontaneous uprising in the city during which the crowd took down the statue. In reality, the square had been sealed by the US military and a US tank pulled the cable that toppled the statue. The "crowd" of less than one-hundred were reported to be Iraqi exiles who had been brought into the square to stage this event.
His words - "The statue coming down was, to be frank, a useful and easy to comprehend image that was put on for the media to show the toppling of Saddam Hussein. And to have the chance to witness it was exciting. But it's been elevated to more than it deserves. "
Wide angle long-shot of central-Baghdad square when Saddam's statue was pulled down. This incident was depicted hundreds of times in the US media with tight shots on the crowd, shots which disinformed the public to believe that there that been a spontaneous uprising in the city during which the crowd took down the statue. In reality, the square had been sealed by the US military and a US tank pulled the cable that toppled the statue. The "crowd" of less than one-hundred were reported to be Iraqi exiles who had been brought into the square to stage this event.
images:
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There has been consistent debate on this subject since it happened. If there is anyone out there that hasn't seen the famous photo that shows a very small group of people in front of the statue surrounded by tanks, here it is:
http://www.ianmasters.org/images/saddam_statue.jpg
Most of the heated objections to the "official" story of explosions of Iraqi jubilation come from non-mainstream sources. However, i did find one reputable source that cites a lot of good first hand sources, the Seattle PI. It is still from an opinion piece from a biased commentator, but at least it is from a mainstream source.
Quoted:
"Shortly after the world was wowed by TV coverage of the toppling of Saddam's statue, doubts were raised. A Reuters photo of the square was circulated showing a much smaller crowd than the close-up TV footage implied. Eyewitness accounts belied the news coverage of a "jubilant" crowd: " ... it happened at only about 300 meters from where I was, and it was a very small crowd. The rest of the square was almost empty, and when we inquired as to where the crowd came from, it was from Saddam City (a poor neighborhood some distance away). In other words, it was a rent-a-crowd" (Rev. Neville Watson, interviewed on SBS-TV, Australia).
British columnist Robert Fisk, writing from Baghdad on April 11 for The Independent, described the statue episode as " ... the most staged photo opportunity since Iwo Jima." And this from David Robie, senior lecturer at Auckland University of Technology: "I watched BBC World in the lead-up to the toppling. The square was largely empty except for three strategically positioned U.S. Abrams tanks and an armored personnel carrier plus a small paltry crowd of 100 or so, many of then apparently journalists. A BBC World news presenter kept asking, 'Where is everybody?' "
As for Jessica Lynch, her "heroic" rescue seems also to have been a sham staged for the media. "It was like a Hollywood film. They cried 'Go, go, go,' with guns and blanks and the sound of explosions. They made a show -- an action movie like Sylvester Stallone or Jackie Chan, with jumping and shouting, breaking down doors," said Iraqi Dr. Anmar Uday when interviewed by the BBC. Apparently the hospital staff even tried to deliver Lynch to the Americans prior to her "rescue," but their ambulance was repelled by gunfire from a U.S. checkpoint (available from the BBC online and reported in the May 17 P-I)."
Most of the heated objections to the "official" story of explosions of Iraqi jubilation come from non-mainstream sources. However, i did find one reputable source that cites a lot of good first hand sources, the Seattle PI. It is still from an opinion piece from a biased commentator, but at least it is from a mainstream source.
Quoted:
"Shortly after the world was wowed by TV coverage of the toppling of Saddam's statue, doubts were raised. A Reuters photo of the square was circulated showing a much smaller crowd than the close-up TV footage implied. Eyewitness accounts belied the news coverage of a "jubilant" crowd: " ... it happened at only about 300 meters from where I was, and it was a very small crowd. The rest of the square was almost empty, and when we inquired as to where the crowd came from, it was from Saddam City (a poor neighborhood some distance away). In other words, it was a rent-a-crowd" (Rev. Neville Watson, interviewed on SBS-TV, Australia).
British columnist Robert Fisk, writing from Baghdad on April 11 for The Independent, described the statue episode as " ... the most staged photo opportunity since Iwo Jima." And this from David Robie, senior lecturer at Auckland University of Technology: "I watched BBC World in the lead-up to the toppling. The square was largely empty except for three strategically positioned U.S. Abrams tanks and an armored personnel carrier plus a small paltry crowd of 100 or so, many of then apparently journalists. A BBC World news presenter kept asking, 'Where is everybody?' "
As for Jessica Lynch, her "heroic" rescue seems also to have been a sham staged for the media. "It was like a Hollywood film. They cried 'Go, go, go,' with guns and blanks and the sound of explosions. They made a show -- an action movie like Sylvester Stallone or Jackie Chan, with jumping and shouting, breaking down doors," said Iraqi Dr. Anmar Uday when interviewed by the BBC. Apparently the hospital staff even tried to deliver Lynch to the Americans prior to her "rescue," but their ambulance was repelled by gunfire from a U.S. checkpoint (available from the BBC online and reported in the May 17 P-I)."
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On Point is;
"the first official U.S. Army history of Army operations in the Second Iraq War."
From On Point,
"The Marine Corps colonel in the area saw the Saddam statue as a target of opportunity and decided that the statue must come down. Since we were right there, we chimed in with some loudspeaker support to let the Iraqis know what it was we were attempting to do. The reporters were completely surrounding the vehicle, and we started having to ask the reporters to move out of the way, but they would not move. We were getting frustrated, but we were also laughing about it. We dismounted the vehicle again and just started pushing people out of the way. They were starting to really inhibit our ability to conduct our mission. The tanks...formed up into a perimeter around the square, with the statue in the middle.
An M88 recovery vehicle approached the statue and continued to drive up the steps right next to the statue in an attempt to bring it down. The people had already tied a noose around the neck of the statue with some rope. They were trying to just tug on it and bring it down and were hitting it with sledgehammers; it was clearly getting crazy in the square. We were no longer in crowd control,as there was just no controlling this crowd at this time. We decided to just ride along with the crowd, and we started just celebrating with the Iraqi people. We actually had to have our interpreter record an ad-hoc broadcast message, informing the Iraqi people that if they did not stand back from the statue, American forces would not bring the statue down. We were afraid that some civilians would get hurt if they were too close or in the wrong spot."
http://books.google.com/books?id=7x8U4t-oJvcC&pg=PA337&lpg=PA337&dq=On+Point+saddam+statue&source=bl&ots=ERBy52Dm9n&sig=T3q1xd1TyIxIb2Orn-Tk8vThmj8&hl=en&ei=-breSeKuNqLwswOsm7SsCQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=3#PPA337,M1
"the first official U.S. Army history of Army operations in the Second Iraq War."
From On Point,
"The Marine Corps colonel in the area saw the Saddam statue as a target of opportunity and decided that the statue must come down. Since we were right there, we chimed in with some loudspeaker support to let the Iraqis know what it was we were attempting to do. The reporters were completely surrounding the vehicle, and we started having to ask the reporters to move out of the way, but they would not move. We were getting frustrated, but we were also laughing about it. We dismounted the vehicle again and just started pushing people out of the way. They were starting to really inhibit our ability to conduct our mission. The tanks...formed up into a perimeter around the square, with the statue in the middle.
An M88 recovery vehicle approached the statue and continued to drive up the steps right next to the statue in an attempt to bring it down. The people had already tied a noose around the neck of the statue with some rope. They were trying to just tug on it and bring it down and were hitting it with sledgehammers; it was clearly getting crazy in the square. We were no longer in crowd control,as there was just no controlling this crowd at this time. We decided to just ride along with the crowd, and we started just celebrating with the Iraqi people. We actually had to have our interpreter record an ad-hoc broadcast message, informing the Iraqi people that if they did not stand back from the statue, American forces would not bring the statue down. We were afraid that some civilians would get hurt if they were too close or in the wrong spot."
http://books.google.com/books?id=7x8U4t-oJvcC&pg=PA337&lpg=PA337&dq=On+Point+saddam+statue&source=bl&ots=ERBy52Dm9n&sig=T3q1xd1TyIxIb2Orn-Tk8vThmj8&hl=en&ei=-breSeKuNqLwswOsm7SsCQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=3#PPA337,M1
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