Following the U.S. occupation of Baghdad on April 9, 2003, “The first seeds of Iraqi cynicism must have been sown by the discovery that the Ministry of Oil was one of the very few public buildings secured by US forces.” – Robin Cook, The Point of Departure, Page 329 […]
Category: quotes
4/9/2003
In Iraq, on “April 9 [2003], an American tank toppled a twenty-foot statue of Saddam Hussein in Baghdad’s Firdos Square. It was the iconic image of what seemed like the end of the war…” – Elisabeth Bumiller, Condoleezza Rice: An American Life, Page 212 […]
4/9/2003
In Baghdad, Iraq, on April 9, 2003, “A few hours after the statue [of Saddam] was toppled, looters arrived at the Ministry of Industry… No troops had been sent to protect it because no one in Washington saw the need. The looters set upon the ten-story building and stole computers, telephones, furniture, and file cabinets. […]
4/9/2003
Iraq’s capital, Baghdad, fell to U.S. troops on April 9, 2003. “At the time, the only government building protected by American troops, other than the Republican Palace, was the Ministry of Oil. Two weeks earlier, the ORHA [Office for Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance] ministers had worked up a list of sites in Baghdad that needed […]
4/9/2003
According to a New York Times article on April 10, 2003, by the time Baghdad fell on April 9, “although pockets of intense fighting remained throughout the country, only 102 American soldiers had been killed in three weeks of combat.” – Stephen F. Hayes, Cheney, Page 394 […]
4/9/2003
In Iraq, following the fall of Baghdad on April 9, 2003, and the looting that ensued, “CentCom [Central Command] ignored the call for the Coalition to have a strong military police presence in all areas falling under the Coalition’s control. When looters saw that the new authority was unwilling or incapable of projecting its power, […]
4/9/2003
In Iraq, “The Ba’ath Party had over two million members by the time the regime was overthrown [on April 9, 2003]. It was by no means exclusively, or even predominantly, Sunni Arab. Shi’a, and even Turkomen and a few Kurds were well represented throughout the Party structure, but the Party’s upper echelons, and its key […]
4/9/2003
On April 9, 2003, “At the Pentagon, Secretary [of Defense Donald] Rumsfeld declared, ‘Saddam Hussein is now taking his rightful place alongside Hitler, Stalin, Lenin, Ceausescu in the pantheon of failed, brutal dictators, and the Iraqi people are well on their way to freedom.’ ” – Todd S. Purdum and The New York Times Staff, […]
4/8/2003
On April 8, 2003, “A cassette tape purportedly from Bin Laden called on Muslims to rise up against Arab governments that were supporting the US-led attack on Iraq. ‘I ask the Muslim women to join jihad by providing food to mujahideen [holy warriors]. Elders should pray for us. I am proud of those martyrs who […]
4/8/2003
“SIGINT [signals intelligence] revealed that what was left of Saddam Hussein’s regime refused to accept the fact that they had been defeated. As late as April 8 [2003], the day before Baghdad fell, intercepted Iraqi satellite phone messages showed that Hussein’s son Qusay, the Republican Guard commander, continued to believe that Iraq was winning the […]