Bagdad One Year Later

Printer-friendly versionSend by emailOne year after the staged toppling of Saddam Hussein's statue in Firdos Square, the bloody violence in Iraq is reaching new peaks. "The last several days in Iraq have seen a spiraling of violence and horror that has taken many Americans by surprise, mostly because those Americans have been relying on the Bush administration for the straight dope," Truthout's William Rivers Pitts writes. We would add that U.S. media have also failed to set the record straight. While they are reporting on the anniversary of Hussein's statue being pulled down, they are still failing to identify the event as nothing more than a glorified photo-op, which we exposed in our book Weapons of Mass Deception. This past Sunday, Firdos Square saw a demonstration by thousands of supporters of Moqtada al-Sadr against the American occupation. Canadian journalist Naomi Klein reports, "US forces pointed tanks at the crowd [in Firdos Sqaure] while a loudspeaker told them that 'demonstrations are an important part of democracy but blocking traffic will not be permitted'." The New York Times reports, the square was completely shut off Friday by U.S. military. A U.S. Humvee circling the neighborhood warned residents not to leave their homes. "Anybody who enters the area carrying a weapon will be shot on sight," the Humvee's loudspeaker blared.