This morning, as my TV turned on as a sort of alarm clock, I was greeted by Good Morning America and news of US troops moving into the city center of Bagdad near the Palestine hotel. With the movement of the troops into the city, the residents began to come out onto the streets. First in a trickle and then in a flow. As with a river, the flow had a direction... A huge statue of Sadam Hussein. Over the next hour Iraqi men climbed the statue, tied a rope to it and even began to hack at the bottom of the huge pedstal (standing 30 or 40 feet). Unfortunetly the statue, like Bagdad itself, is huge and not an easy object to bring down. In many ways it seems to be a metaphor for the US effort to free Iraq. A big job laced with dangers, but a job ready to be engaged.

A US armored recovery vechicle drove up to the statue offering its increadible power to help the crowd of young Iraqis to bring down the statue of Sadam Hussein. With a heavy cable from the armored vehecial in toe an energetic Iraqi climbed the pedestal and tied the cable to the statue joined later by marines lacing the statue with more cables and eventually tied an Iraqi flag to the neck of the statue. An image that is as fantastic in showing Sadam's Iraq dieing quickly as it is amazing in that Iraqis and US Marines are working together towards a common goal, the end of Sadam and his many statues. A symbolic act that has been seen time and time again throughout time as hostile regimes fade away into history.