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Iraq: Rewind 5 years

"The fifth anniversary of the fall of Baghdad and the toppling of the statute of Saddam Hussein – a symbol of US victory and might – was marked yesterday by death and destruction across the country and an admission from the White House that projected troop withdrawals would have to be delayed."

So begins a piece in The Independent today. More troubling, this:

"Much of Baghdad was a ghost town yesterday, with the government imposing a curfew from 5am to midnight on vehicles in an attempt to stop car bombings. Similar restrictions were imposed in Saddam Hussein's home town of Tikrit. "This is not quite what we had expected five years on," a State Department official in Baghdad acknowledged.

The exact number of casualties of the Iraq war remains unclear in a state which continues to be close to anarchy. More than four million people, many from the intelligentsia who were supposed to rebuild the country, have fled abroad and Baghdad, a city with a shattered infrastructure, now has more than two million internal refugees who have fled from fighting in other parts of the country.

The pulling down of Saddam's statue in Firdous Square was supposed to have been an expression of popular joy at the downfall of a tyrant. The "impassioned populace", it turned out later, were people bused in from Sadr City, then called Saddam City. Ibrahim Khalil, who was in the crowd that day, said yesterday: "If history can take me back, I will now actually kiss the statue of Saddam. I am sorry that I played a part in pulling it down. I think now that was a black day for Baghdad. We got rid of Saddam, but now we have 50 Saddams. In his days we were safe. I ask Bush, 'where are your promises of making Iraq a better country?'"

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