"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."
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"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 he vehicle with cheering Iraqi children."
We all knew this was a made for television staged event so nothing new here. As Atrios points out, it was not made for the Iraqis, it was made for the US TV audiences and to be used for Bush campaign fodder.
Like the carefully choreographed Jessica Lynch rescue, the Army psychological operations unit was being used to influence the citizens of the United States, not the Iraqis. This point is ignored in the Times article and by the SCLM in general. Isn't that what tyrants do?
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