Feb. 20, 2007 - It's the postcard image of Baghdad: a pair of gigantic crossed swords clenched in massive fists. The monument, known officially as the Hands of Victory, is both a symbol of Saddam Hussein's outsized ego and his iron grip. For nearly 20 years, the swords have dominated the skyline in central Baghdad. But on Tuesday afternoon, 10-foot bronze chunks cut from one fist were stacked haphazardly at the base of the monument, the first step in bringing the swords down. "I was very shocked when I heard they started destroying it," says Mustafa Khadimi, executive director of the Iraq Memory Foundation,an organization that has meticulously documented the atrocities of the former regime.The Iraqi government has yet to issue an official statement about the dismantling of the swords, but the effort is clearly already underway. Khadimi says Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki made the decision to bring down the monument last week in coordination with a governmental body named the Committee for Removing Symbols of the Saddam Era. The idea of erasing the symbols of the former regime completely undercuts the mission of organizations like the Iraq Memory Foundation, which had planned to build a huge museum on the site. Representatives from the organization have sent letters of protest to the Iraqi government as well as UNESCO. "We need to use these two swords as proof to further generations to show what happened to Iraqi people," says Khadimi.
Saddam constructed the monument to symbolize what he saw as a definitive victory in the brutal war with Iran during the 1980s. The pair of crossed swords was officially unveiled in 1989, but Saddam started construction on the monument well before the war with Iran was even finished. He pulled out all the stops. The swords cross approximately 130 feet in the air and are reportedly built from melted-down tanks and other hardware used by the Iraqi military. The hands gripping the swords, approximately 20 feet high, are bronze replicas of Saddam's own fists. The Butcher of Baghdad added a gruesome final touch: thousands of helmets from Iranian soldiers allegedly killed in the war dangle from nets attached to the fists. Other helmets are embedded in concrete at the base of the monument, intended as speed bumps.
These days, the monument sits in the heart of the Green Zone. Since the fall of the regime, visitors have left their mark with graffiti. One scrawl in black pen on a green Iranian helmet reads, "I [heart] Iraq." Taking a photo beneath the crossed swords is a must-do for visitors of all stripes. And Tuesday was no exception. Humvees and SUVs pulled up for a photo op at sunset as word spread that the monument was being taken down. Some posed beneath the swords, others pulled out digital cameras to preserve the moment. A handful of souvenir hunters were stopped by Green Zone police as they tried to haul off a half dozen helmets.
Like Saddam's bungled execution, a hasty decision to dismantle the monument could inflame sectarian tensions. Many Sunnis, whether they supported Saddam or not, will likely interpret the move as a direct snub by a Shiite-led government. Not exactly the kind of message the government should send while enforcing a new security plan. "The timing doesn't serve anything," says Wamidh Nadhmi, a political science professor at Baghdad University. "This would be a defeat for the whole idea of reconciliation."