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wrbones
04-10-03, 02:54 AM
Iraqis — With American Help — Topple Statue of Saddam in Baghdad







Thursday, April 10, 2003

BAGHDAD, Iraq — In a scene of triumph and jubilation televised live throughout the world, Iraqi citizens in the heart of Baghdad -- with help from a large U.S. military vehicle -- toppled a huge statue of Saddam Hussein Wednesday and began dancing on it when it fell to the ground.





Meanwhile, U.S. officials told Fox News that U.S. intelligence officers with the CIA are on the ground in Baghdad and throughout Iraq trying to find scientists who would be able to point out where Iraq's weapons of mass destruction are or where they were made. The intelligence operation was described to Fox News as "extensive" Wednesday night.

The intelligence effort is in addition to the special operations teams specifically designed to find and test possible weapons materials gathered from sites across the country. Going into the search, there was a list of 1,000 sites to examine. Senior defense officials said, "the list has grown ... and they [the teams] have only been through a small number of sites [less than 20]."

On the battlefield, U.S. Marines stormed a Baghdad mosque Thursday, and the BBC Web site states that Marines feel Saddam Hussein may be hiding inside. There has been confirmation of one Marine killed in this fierce firefight, but there is no confirmation yet regarding the rumors of Saddam being in the mosque.

As the 40-foot statue of the Iraqi leader fell in Baghdad, some threw shoes and slippers at it -- a gross insult in the Arab world.

• Maps: Iraq | Baghdad

"I'm 49, but I never lived a single day. Only now will I start living," said Yussuf Abed Kazim, a mosque preacher. A young Iraqi spat on a portrait of Saddam. Men hugged Americans in full combat gear, and women held up babies so soldiers riding on tanks could kiss them.

Iraqis released decades of pent-up fury as U.S. forces solidified their grip on the capital. Marine tanks rolled to the eastern bank of the Tigris River; the Army was on the western side of the waterway that curls through the ancient city.

Looting broke out in the capital as Iraqis, shedding their fear of the regime, entered government facilities and made off with furniture, computers, air conditioners and even military jeeps.

"We are not seeing any organized resistance," said Navy Capt. Frank Thorp at the U.S. Central Command. "The Iraqi military is unable to fight as an organized fighting force." And Maj. Gen. Buford C. Blount III, commander of the Army's 3rd Infantry Division, told reporters that "the end of the combat phase is days away."

Senior defense officials told Fox News Wednesday night that one MOAB bomb -- the oft-referred to "Mother of All Bombs," or, more formally the "Massive Ordnance Air Blast" munition -- has been moved into the Iraqi theater, and is ready for use.

There doesn't seem to be a scenario at this point in time, however, under which the MOAB -- the largest conventional weapon in the U.S. arsenal -- would be dropped. The bomb is being kept on hand as a contingency.

"I can't think of a situation in which we would use one," a senior U.S. official said Wednesday night.

At a Pentagon briefing, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said Saddam "is taking his rightful place" alongside such brutal dictators of the past as Adolf Hitler, Josef Stalin and Vladimir Lenin.

And while Rumsfeld and other American officials cautioned that combat may lie ahead, Iraq's U.N. ambassador told reporters that "the game is over, and I hope peace will prevail." Mohammed Al-Douri's comments to reporters in New York were the first admission by an Iraqi official that Saddam's forces had been overwhelmed.

There was continued combat in cities to the north, though, where government troops were under attack from coalition warplanes.

Early Thursday, U.S. Marines took control of a palace after a fierce, three-hour firefight in which one Marine was killed and at least eight wounded.

The scenes of liberation in Baghdad and celebrations in scattered other cities unfolded as the Pentagon announced that 101 American troops had died in the first three weeks of Operation Iraqi Freedom. Eleven others are missing and seven listed as captured. The British said 30 of their troops were dead. There are no reliable estimates for Iraqi casualties, although an Army spokesman said 7,300 prisoners had been taken.

The medical system was overrun with civilian casualties in Basra and Baghdad, cities where some of the fiercest fighting has occurred. Doctors said 35 bodies and as many as 300 wounded Iraqis were brought to the al-Kindi hospital in the capital Tuesday.

Saddam's whereabouts remained a mystery, especially so since a bombing Monday night on a building where U.S. intelligence officials believed he and at least one of his sons were meeting. U.S. special operations forces scoured the site Wednesday, looking for remains or other evidence that the four bombs may have killed the Iraqi leader. Russia's Foreign Ministry denied that Saddam had taken refuge in Moscow's embassy in Baghdad.

There was scattered fighting in the capital, including at Baghdad University, where Iraqis were cornered, the river at their backs.

Fires burned in the city after dark -- the Ministry of Transport and Communication was ablaze -- and gunfire persisted. But Pentagon officials characterized it as sporadic attacks from pockets of resistance, and said U.S. troops had been through most areas of the capital.

Increasingly, coalition forces were turning their effort to humanitarian assistance in the southern part of the country, and their firepower on northern regions not yet under their control.

Warplanes bombed Tikrit, Saddam's birthplace about 100 miles north of the capital, in advance of ground forces moving in. American commandos and Kurdish peshmerga fighters seized a key mountaintop in northern Iraq, eliminating an Iraqi air defense installation near the government-held city of Mosul.

To the south, officials said the 1st Battalion Royal Irish Regiment had reached Qurnah, said to be the site of the biblical Garden of Eden. The troops were welcomed by cheering crowds of Ma'dan, marsh Arabs who have suffered genocide at the hands of Saddam. There was celebrating, too, in Basra, according to a British journalist who reported that rejoicing broke out after news of developments in Baghdad reached the city.

Administration officials cautioned that difficult and dangerous days may yet lie ahead for American and British forces. "This is not over despite all the celebrating on the streets," said Rumsfeld. And Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Iraqi death squads still exist in the western part of the country.

Like other officials, Rumsfeld said he did not know Saddam's whereabouts. But he said some unidentified members of Saddam's regime were moving out of Iraq into Syria. Citing intelligence information, he added that some were staying in Syria, while others were going on to other locations.

Whether Saddam was living or dead, wounded or hoping to escape, the signs of his regime's collapse were everywhere.

For the first time since Operation Iraqi Freedom was launched three weeks ago, Information Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf failed to appear before reporters with claims of glorious battlefield victories by Iraqi troops. And for the first time in decades, Iraqis were defacing images of the man who ruled brutally for nearly a quarter century.

One wall painting was spraypainted with black devil's horns, eyeglasses and a black chin beard. Others were set ablaze.

"We are relieved because for years we lived in anxiety and fear," said Shamoun George, a resident of Baghdad's Karrada district, as American troops entered the area.

"Bush, Bush, thank you," chanted small bands of youth in Saddam City, a predominantly Shiite area of eastern Baghdad.

At the city center, a crowd gathered at the base of a large statue of Saddam inside al-Firdos (Paradise) Square.

Several men climbed up a ladder, tied a thick rope around the statue like a noose, then tried to pull it over. Moments later, a Marine briefly covered the upright statue's head with an American flag, then replaced it with an Iraqi flag, underscoring the sensitivity that senior U.S. officials feel about entering Iraq as liberators, rather than occupiers.

more http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,83715,00.html

wrbones
04-10-03, 03:51 AM
http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/Northeast/04/09/sprj.irq.statue.marine/index.html



Family cheers as 'their Marine' leads statue's destruction
From Rose Arce and Dana Garrett
CNN New York Bureau
Wednesday, April 9, 2003 Posted: 6:58 PM EDT (2258 GMT)



Cpl. Edward Chin drapes an American flag on the face of Saddam Hussein's statue before tearing it down.

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NEW YORK (CNN) -- Cheers erupted Wednesday morning as a Brooklyn family watching television recognized their son and brother as the Marine who played a lead role in toppling a statue of Saddam Hussein in a central square in Baghdad.

The image of Cpl. Edward Chin, 23, of the 3rd Battalion, 4th Marines Regiment, was broadcast on TV screens around the world as U.S. troops joined a crowd that was attacking the statue. (Full story)

In central Baghdad's Firdos Square, Chin climbed the outstretched arm of an M88 Tank Recovery Vehicle to fasten a cable around the statue's neck, and while he was there, briefly covered its face with an American flag.

After the M88 pulled the statue down, the crowd placed a pre-Gulf War Iraqi flag on the statue's base.

Iraqis broke the statue into pieces and dragged its head through the streets, while others -- including children -- pounded it with shoes, an act considered a supreme insult in the Arab world.

"I [am] so, so proud, so very proud," said an emotional Nai Koon Chin, the Marine's mother. "He used to play like GI Joe as a little boy. He always dreamed he would be a Marine."

An immigrant from Burma, she said the family left the country seeking "American freedom" in 1980, and she gave birth to Edward a week later.

"We like our children have a good life, good schools. We want American freedom. Now Edward bring American freedom, " she said.

The family's home in the Dyker Heights area of Brooklyn is decorated with pictures of Edward and care packages of chocolates they are preparing to send him. Their living room filled with relatives, neighbors and reporters soon after Edward was seen on television.

His sister Connie told CNN, "I'm just speechless. I can't really put into words what I'm feeling, but I'm just very proud of my brother right now."

Meanwhile, Cpl. Chin told reporters in Baghdad he was happy, but eager to go home.

"I feel satisfaction that it's almost over, that I can go home soon, " he told ITN television. When asked how it felt to be in Baghdad he said it was "kind of crazy" but Marines had gotten a "warm welcome."

As the interview ended, a civilian handed him a bunch of flowers, and the smiling Marine sped away on his tank.