Rémy Ourdan
Iraq, 2003
Dimensions: 90 mm x 138 mm
The day of the fall of Baghdad, on 9th April 2003, as I was covering the Iraqi side, I walked through Baghdad towards American lines and met colonel Bryan McCoy, commander of the 3rd battalion 4th Marines. The colonel de- cided to take the city center. “So, Remy, where is the damn Palestine hotel?”, he screamed.
There, on Firdos square, he ordered his men to help the Iraqis take down
the symbolic statue of Saddam Hussein. The soldiers first covered it with an American flag, saying it was coming from the rubbles of the Pentagon on 9/11. The event became the fall of Baghdad.
In the following months, I went down the road used by the 3/4 Marines. The way the unit had behaved turned out to be a perfect example of a useless killing of civilians. Years later, travelling through the US, I visited a former officer, Tim McLaughlin, who was allegedly the owner of the flag. He laughed. The flag was offered to him by a girlfriend and had nothing to do with 9/11.
