Falling With Hussein

During the toppling of the statue of Saddam Hussein in Firdos square in Baghdad, the media turned a stage managed affair into a “feel-good” story with commentary comparing the scene to the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. A cropped photo created the appearance of a crowd surrounding the statue and cheering as it fell. Of the crowd assembled, the majority where American soldiers and journalists. A report from the BBC stated that only “dozens” of Iraqis were in the crowd. Others were Iraqi political agents of the American military.

While Americans were left with warm hearts after being told that the US military was “ freeing” the Iraqi people, what was never mentioned was that, by Pentagon figures, more Iraqis were killed in Baghdad on Saturday, April 5, then Americans killed at the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. What was also never mentioned was that the total number of Iraqis killed in three weeks of war exceeded the 50,000 Americans killed over 12 years in Vietnam.

Taken from, “Media Democracy in Action Censored 2005,” by Peter Phillips and Project Censored, pp. 133-4.