U.S. Marines In Iraq, 2003: Basrah, Baghdad And Beyond: by Colonel Nicholas E. Reynolds USMCR

Author:Colonel Nicholas E. Reynolds USMCR [USMCR, Colonel Nicholas E. Reynolds]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, Military, Iraq War (2003-2011), Persian Gulf War (1991), United States, Aviation
ISBN: 9781782896845
Google: KBlvCwAAQBAJ
Publisher: Pickle Partners Publishing
Published: 2014-08-15T05:04:32+00:00

The result was that RCT 7 happily assaulted through its assigned area of operations, moving from the southeast to the northwest on the north bank of the Tigris. The list of sites they secured on that day was impressive—the Ministry of Intelligence; the Ministry of Oil; Uday Hussein’s offices, which were already burning when the Marines arrived; the Iraqi air force headquarters, which had been destroyed; and the Fedayeen headquarters, which was listed as “rubbled.” At the end of the day, the division’s plans were just as ambitious as its accomplishments: “to have made [the Marine] presence known in all of [our] city zones by morning tomorrow [and] over the next few days… allowing the local populace… to return to some sense of normal life.”{409}

Among the sites in the 7th Marines area of operations was Firdos Square in downtown Baghdad. It was dominated by a six-meter-high statue of Saddam Hussein with his right arm raised in a heroic gesture. The 3d Battalion, 4th Marines, rolled into the square late in the day on 9 April. A crowd quickly gathered. Given the proximity of the local haven for journalists, the Palestine Hotel, there seemed to be as many foreign reporters as Iraqi citizens in the crowd. An Army psychological operations team attached to the Marines arrived and announced over a loudspeaker in Arabic that the Marines had decided the statue should come down. Millions around the world were able to watch the events in real time on Cable News Network and other television networks. A Marine named Corporal Edward Chin, of Company B, 1st Tank Battalion, climbed onto a derrick that extended from his M88 tank retriever. He reached up and placed an American flag over Saddam’s face. Some of the Iraqis said, “No, we want an Iraqi flag,” and, within one or two minutes, Chin took the flag down and replaced it with an Iraqi flag. Next a stout rope was fitted around the statue, and then to a cable on the tank retriever. When the tank retriever pulled, the statue came down, slowly, as the metal bent and Saddam slipped off the pedestal. The crowd rushed forward, swarming over the fallen statue. One group of Iraqis dragged its head to an unknown but no doubt unpleasant fate.{410}

There are a few arresting images in every war, and the toppling of the Saddam statue was one of them for the Iraq War. It was not exactly what the high command wanted. Generals Tommy Franks and McKiernan, each at his own headquarters, had been watching the scene unfold on television, and when the American flag went over Saddam’s face, Franks picked up the telephone to call McKiernan, who did not need to be told why his boss was calling. Even before General Franks could say anything, General McKiernan said, “We are already on it.”{411} As commanders from General Franks to General Mattis had told their troops over and over again, this was not a war of American conquest, but of Iraqi liberation.

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