No True Glory

Chapter One

1

“What kind of people loot dirt?”

Throughout most of Iraq, the latter days of April, 2003 was a time of great joy. Saddam’s murderous regime had collapsed; the shooting and bombing had stopped; and people could go anywhere they pleased and say anything they wanted. In Baghdad, the American forces were greeted with smiles, waves and shouts of joy. On the eastern bank of the Euphrates near the French embassy, wealthy Sunni suburbanites—anxious to win favor—led American Marines to the estates of Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz and high-level generals. When the giant Stalinesque statue of Saddam, arm raised and mustache bristling, fell in Firdos Square, Americans and Iraqis alike were pulling on the ropes. April 2003 was an interlude of good cheer, reminiscent of the liberation of Paris in 1944—a moment in time when people forgot their wants and their fears and flocked to the streets to cheer the soldiers.

In Fallujah, though, the residents did not cheer when paratroopers from the 82d Airborne Division drove into the city in late April. In Baghdad, looters as numerous as locusts had stripped every government building, even carting away bric ... read full excerpt from: No True Glory: Fallujah and the Struggle in Iraq ebook