Friday, April 11, 2003
The Big Picture
I don’t doubt that the residents of Baghdad are happy to see Saddam go, I’d be happy to be rid of a brutal dictator, too. What I do doubt is the authenticity of the joyous pulling down of the Saddam statue in Fardus Square. While the shots that were shown repeatedly on TV were tightly cropped, here is the big picture.
Taken from the Palestine Hotel where the international press was quartered (which, incidently, was hit the day before by fire from US tanks), the picture shows how small the crowd actually was. Also, there are reports that many in the crowd were members of an Iraqi exile militia group airlifted in by the Pentagon in recent days.
This was a carefully staged media event. Unfortunately, this totally manufactured image will be used as justifification of our attack on Iraq.
