The day the statue fell, as seen from Cairo to the Carolinas
The symbol of the end of Saddam Hussein's three-decade reign was met with joy and despair worldwide
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"I want to be part of reconstructing Iraq," he says. "I have contacts in the communications field, and in construction, and I hope I can do something useful for the foreign companies that will come," he comments. "The economic situation in Jordan is not so great at the moment, and I want to improve my income. Everybody wants to do that, but I want to do it in a good way."
Abbas, the Iraqi exile in California, has similar hopes and plans. He is searching, through the Defense and State departments, for safe ways back to Iraq to check two homes sacked by Hussein and three pharmacies he owned before the Baath Party expropriated them. He has spent the last three days with no sleep, with customers and acquaintances hugging him at the local Rite Aid where he fills prescriptions.
The family of his wife, Sabria, still owns 300 acres of farm near Najaf. She will go to Washington this week to begin a series of formal training in childcare, primary education, health care, and basic finance to teach compatriots after she heads back to help in the reconstruction of Iraq.
Daughter Esra, meanwhile, an activist for women's issues who was given audience last week by President Bush in the White House, says she will stop at nothing to make sure the democracy planned for Iraq, will be "proper and complete." She sees a very tough road ahead for the new Iraq.
"We are going to have to show the world that we can see beyond our differences and unite," says Esra. "We are going to have to rebuild block by block."
"I'm telling everyone I don't want our next leader, whoever that is, to put all our money in his pocket, like Saddam did. I am going to fight for a diverse government, one that is fair to all groups including women. I mean it. I will fight for equal rights, equal pay, equal opportunity."
"It's been wonderful for many of us here in America to see first hand what democracy can provide," says Esra. "I want it all: schools, movie theaters, restaurants, pools, fast-food. I am not going to be silent."
• • •
Back in Havelock, N.C., Elizabeth has no business plans or ideas about taking part in the reconstruction of a future Iraq. All she wants, is for her husband, Tom, to come home.
Indeed, as the war came to some conclusion last week, Elizabeth's task turned, like the men and women in Iraq, to cleaning up the aftermath. Instead of burnt-out tanks and spent shells, she had to content herself with different sorts of havoc wrought by the war: The children's rooms were a mess, the two youngest had been fighting nonstop, and Andrew had been getting into trouble at school, acting out and unable to contain a deep rage that he's then unable to explain.
The fall of Baghdad has set a new course for the Clingersmiths: After the chaos around the departure, the uncertainty in the days afterwards, the slow reckoning of absence, there's now a diligent return to form: "I'm starting to cook dinners again," says Elizabeth. "There's leftovers in the fridge right now - that's a good sign." And this week, she vows to get everybody's room cleaned up, and settle in to wait for the return of their Marine - a wait which just got, she hopes, a little shorter.
• • •
They all saw the statue fall - The young Iraqi deserter in Northern Iraq, wearing borrowed civilian clothes too big for him and hoping for a better future; The toughened Washington, D.C., lawyer, sure of the righteousness of her country's ways; The excited Marine in Baghdad, meandering through a marble palace and picking out an gold gilded ashtray for his wife back home; And the Baghdad man, missing the dictator, though unable to explain quite why.
Whether Hussein himself saw the fall of his likeness, and from where is besides the point. It was toppled, and the world was immediately very changed.
