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Paul Bremer has made clear that his statement of not enough troops to quell looting in Baghdad applied to May immediately after Baghdad fell. We should know who is responsible for this terrible state of affairs...

The Fall of Baghdad by Edmund Candler, Manchester Guardian, 16 March 1917 Our vanguard entered Baghdad soon after nine o'clock this morning. The city is approached by an unmetalled road between palm groves and orange gardens. Crowds of Baghdadis came out to meet us: Persians, Krabe, Jew, Armenians, Chaldeans and Christians of diverse sects and races. They lined the streets, balconies and roofs, hurrahing and clapping their hands. Groups of schoolchildren danced in front of us, shouting and cheering, and the women of the city turned out in their holiday dresses. The people of the city have been robbed to...

One year ago today, Cpl. Edward Chin climbed up an enormous statue of Saddam Hussein and into history when he draped a noose over the tyrant's head and marked the fall of Baghdad. The 24-year-old New Yorker remains convinced that America was right to oust Saddam - whether or not weapons of mass destruction are ever found. But with U.S. forces battling Iraqi rebels and taking heavy losses, Chin is troubled that the war that seemed to have been won when he stood atop the statue in Baghdad's Firdos Square shows no sign of ending. "I was hoping that our...

Angels Watching Over Us: A Military Chaplain's Account of Miracles in Iraq April 8, 2004 CBN.com – As coalition forces charged into enemy territory on their mission to liberate Iraq a year ago, a different liberation was taking place in the hearts of many of the soldiers. Lieutenant Carey Cash, chaplain to the First Battalion, 5th Marine regiment, part of the first ground force to enter Iraq, says there is no doubt that God was with them. In his new book, "A Table in the Presence," Cash gives his first-hand account of how God was not only moving in the...

IRAQ THE MODEL Friday, April 09, 2004 The first candle. - It’s the day that brought me back to life. It’s the 9th of April and I’m free, and they will not steel my joy again and they will not silence me. A year ago at the same date, the thieves and criminals prevented me from celebrating my freedom in the open air, and today thieves, criminals and fanatics are doing the same, but they will not steal my happiness that is making my soul fly and dance with joy and they can’t stop this. A year ago, words failed...

INDIANAPOLIS - A Marine from Indiana whose smiling, cigar-smoking image helped symbolize the fall of Baghdad a year ago suffered severe head injuries in fighting this week in the besieged Iraqi city of Fallujah. AP Photo Gunnery Sgt. Nick Popaditch, 36, of Terre Haute, marked Friday's one-year anniversary of the fall at a U.S. military hospital in Landstuhl, Germany. Surgeons removed a piece of shrapnel that lodged near his optic nerve when a rocket-propelled grenade slammed into his tank Tuesday in Fallujah, his wife said Friday. "He had to have his right eye removed. He's very concerned about that," April...

CHOMAN, Iraq, April 9 (Reuters) - As much of Iraq marked the anniversary of Saddam Hussein's fall with fighting and bloodshed, Kurds in the relatively stable north celebrated with parties and the melting of an ice statue of the ousted dictator. In the mountains north of Arbil, hundreds of people held a carnival to cheer the fall of a regime that oppressed Iraq's Kurdish minority, in stark contrast to large parts of the country further south where insurgents battled foreign troops. "Those people who are fighting now don't like freedom for Iraq. We are celebrating this day," said the mayor...

As I lay in the dirt of a drainage ditch next to the Baghdad-Amman highway, pinned down in a cross-fire between insurgents and an American convoy, I was seized by a single thought: Get to an oasis, get to Baghdad. A year to the day after Americans and Baghdadis hauled down Saddam Hussein's massive statue in the city's Paradise Square, his own resplendent gift to himself, Shi'ite militants and Sunni insurgents have seemingly blasted away hope for security. When asked, Iraqis will say that without security, their food tastes sour, their sleep comes in fits, and the American dream of...

A year ago today, I was interviewing the US Ambassador, William Stamps Farish III, when he stood up suddenly and shouted: "The big sucker's coming down." I looked at the television screen and watched as the statue of Saddam Hussein toppled over. This polite Texan friend of the Queen couldn't contain himself. When I had first met him, two days after September 11, he had been in tears, reading out the messages of condolence from the British. He couldn't get over their kindness. But since the war against Iraq had begun, he had felt under siege in Britain from the...

A Table In The Presence: The Dramatic Account of How a U.S. Marine Battalion Experienced God's Presence Amidst the Chaos of the War in IraqClicking on the link will take you to the interview Pat Robertson has with Lt. Carey H Cash. The interview starts at 17:18 of stream feed. Lt. Cash recounts how the angels protected this Marine Battalion. I found the interview quite amazing. Clicking on the link will take you to the interview Pat Robertson has with Lt. Cash. The interview starts at 17:18 on stream feed. On April 10th, 2003, the 1st Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment,...

Baghdad – Saddam Hussein failed to anticipate the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, and even after hostilities had started, deluded himself that he was winning the war and could clinch a negotiated settlement through French and Russian mediation. According to newly uncovered secret documents, the former Iraqi regime never contemplated its imminent defeat and continued to function normally under Saddam's direct control, even as American tanks were closing in on Baghdad. While much has been made about intelligence failures in the West, it seems that Saddam's own senior officials, diplomats and spies offered him such a warped vision of the outside...

The 23 day campaign to defeat Iraq in 2003 is now being examined by all the participants to determine what made the big difference. Researchers at the Army War College did a study, interviewing 176 participants (including Iraqis) and concluded that the major factors were the new technologies (GPS smart bombs and satellite communications like Blue Force tracker) and the much higher skill levels of coalition troops. The Iraqis had expected smart bombs, but they were unable to cope with the sheer speed of the advance and the fighting. And when the Iraqis fought, and they often did, and quite...

The Thunder Run'Are you kidding, sir?': Fewer than 1,000 soldiers were ordered to capture a city of 5 million Iraqis. Theirs is a story that may become military legend.By David ZucchinoNine hundred and seventy-five men invading a city of 5 million sounded audacious, or worse, to the U.S. troops assigned the mission outside Baghdad last April 6. Ten years earlier, in Mogadishu, outnumbered American soldiers had been trapped and killed by Somali street fighters. Now some U.S. commanders, convinced the odds were far better in Iraq, scrapped the original plan for taking Baghdad with a steady siege and instead ordered...

<p>Baghdad -- Chapter 6: All quiet in Baghdad .. .. . Meeting the press corps . .. . . The statue of Saddam comes down, people hit it with their shoes .. .. . Baghdad is Dodge City . .. .. Two more Marines die . .. .. Darkside's Thug Patrol . .. .. Getting out of Dodge . .. .. Ice at the Hilton . .. .. Marines return to their desert . .. .. Everyone's happy, except the ones who are not . .. .. Debauchery at the Rattler . .. .. Where war stays forever. .</p>

The Associated Press CAIRO, Egypt Oct. 15 — Iraq's former information minister on Wednesday said the main reason the Iraqi army collapsed so quickly during the U.S. invasion was widespread confusion after American troops captured the Baghdad airport. Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf, speaking to Abu Dhabi Television, acknowledged that some Iraqi officers told the soldiers who were trying to regain the airport not to fight and to leave their units. "Our troops were confused, there was a wide desertion by the soldiers and several units were destroyed," al-Sahhaf said, describing the battle around Baghdad airport when U.S. troops reached it on...

Sorry, Tony, if the world thinks we're failing in Iraq it is the fault of your peers, not this administration! This administration has been telling the world and the press the truth about Iraq daily, for six months (plus regularly for six months pre-war). For six months the press has ignored the administration officials, the troops and the Iraqi people to push their own anti-war, anti-Bush agenda.The facts are verifiable.Now we have the press, who failed to tell the truth, failed to inform the world, failed to do their jobs, lecturing those who are doing a tremendous job fulfilling their...

<p>PORTSMOUTH, N.H. &#8212; President Bush yesterday marked the six-month anniversary of the fall of Baghdad by unapologetically celebrating Saddam Hussein's ousting and imploring Americans not to abandon Iraq.</p> <p>"Six months ago today, the statue of the dictator was pulled down," the president told cheering reservists at Pease Air National Guard Base. "There is only one decent and humane reaction to the fall of Saddam Hussein: Good riddance."</p>

L. Paul BremerCoalition Provisional Authority AdministratorOpening Remarks Press Conference 9 October 2003<>Six months ago today Coalition Forces liberated Baghdad.  I am sure that many of you were as thrilled as I was to see Saddam’s statue and his regime fall.Most, but not all, of what has happened since then is good.The Coalition has completed over 13,000 reconstruction projects, large and small, as part of our strategic plan for the reconstruction of Iraq.  That plan has four elements:·      Create a Secure Environment.·      Begin Restoration of Essential Services.·      Begin to Transform the Economy.·      Begin the Transformation to Democracy.Before taking your questions...

BAGHDAD — The fall of Baghdad brought large-scale looting of the treasures of ancient Iraq. In the ancient city of Nimrud, 250 kilometers south of Baghdad, now tells Al-Majalla security staff had to be especially vigilant around the ancient tunnels, Ibrahim Atta, in charge of security there, told Al Majalla, a sister publication of Arab News. Thieves were using the tunnels to gain entrance to the city and its museum. They usually came at night and never hesitated to shoot at anyone who got in their way. Ibrahim says his team successfully repulsed all such attempts. Foreign observers say that...

<p>BAGHDAD -- Iraq's armed forces virtually evaporated during the war in March and April because of a confused and often ineffectual command structure, which oversaw hundreds of thousands of disaffected soldiers who had no idea of the battle plan. After decades of dictatorship, the war was fought with little gusto by anyone other than Saddam Hussein's inner circle, former Iraqi officers say.</p>