It began as another step to rid Iraq of its Baathist past, but before it ended, the two-hour effort Sunday to pull down a statue of the country’s former president, Ahmad Hassan Bakr, turned into a snap-shot of the turmoil and raw emotion that grips this American-occupied capital more than a month after the war appeared to end.The small group that had gathered in the middle of a southern Baghdad traffic circle suddenly ambushed a landmark they have lived with for years. Clusters of Shiite Muslims argued for an end to any reminder of their dark years of oppression, others vented their rage at the misery of everyday life under US rule, while some just stood back and listened almost transfixed as they watched a scene unfold.‘‘Instead of pulling down this statue, you should go half a kilometre down the road and do something for those at the gas station,’’ suggested Nabil Mustafir, a 43-year-old computer scientist. ‘‘How can you speak of security with that statue still standing?’’ said another young man. Still others argued that Bakr, a leading Baathist figure that Saddam Hussein ousted in 1979 in order to seize power, had been mild in comparison with Saddam himself.Caught off guard, the momentum of the debate seemed to be flowing away from the event’s organizers. As other locals joined the verbal fray, a truck-mounted crane positioned nearby to help topple the monument drove off. Soon soft-drink vendors showed up, selling cans of Pepsi and 7UP.About 45 minutes on, reinforcements arrived for the organizers. A Shiite cleric, Mohammed Basri, appeared, telling those who gathered around him how the Baathist regime had killed a close relative. Moments later, resistance broke. One young man scrambled atop the plinth and banged on the statue with his shoe, while another draped a woman’s night-gown over the late president’s right hand to the delight from those watching. A third began beating on the statue’s head with a long metal pipe as he screamed, ‘‘Allahu akbar’’ — God is great.Soon, a flat-bed truck with a small loading crane began pulling a chain draped around Bakr’s neck. When that effort failed, a second, far larger, mobile construction crane was halted by the group and quickly put to work.An initial push from the crane sent the statue’s head rolling where a group of young men pounced on it, then carried it off triumphantly at a run. By the close of the second hour, the monument was down completely and Al-Basri, grabbed the ambulance megaphone to shout in celebration. (LAT-WP)
