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9 April 2003: Just Another Staged Baghdad Rally?
The painted plaster sculpture that replaced Saddam Hussein’s statue
Fake statue fails to replace toppled Saddam
By Damien McElroy, Telegraph, 10 April 2007
It attracted universal derision and scuttled the career of its sculptor, Basim Hamid. Painted dark green to give the impression that the plaster figure is a bronze, its features are hard to make out in Baghdad’s harsh sunlight.
In the midst of escalating violence there were few in Iraq who took succour from its dedication “to freedom-loving people everywhere”. Many remember a two-line piece of graffiti written on the plinth soon after it was erected. It said: “All Donne (sic). Go Home.”
9 April 2007: Hundreds of thousands chant “No, No to America! Yes, Yes to Freedom!”
WHouse downplays Iraq demonstrations
YUMA, United States (AFP) – The White House on Monday downplayed anti-US rallies in Iraq called by radical Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr and said such demonstrations were a hopeful sign of freedom.