Then and Now: What Replaced the Toppled Saddam Statue?

IRAQ -- August 26, 2010 at 12:00 PM EDT

The NewsHour is in Iraq reporting on the country's challenges in security, public services and politics as U.S. combat forces depart. We're also revisiting sites made famous -- or infamous -- by the war.

BAGHDAD | The toppling of a statue of Saddam Hussein, marking the fall of Baghdad to U.S.-led coalition forces, did not escape controversy when a U.S. Marine temporarily draped an American flag over the statue's head and an Army report showed the statue's fall was not as spontaneous as it appeared.

Nonetheless, the image taken on April 9, 2003, in Baghdad's Firdos Square came to symbolize the freedom of Iraqis from Saddam's regime.

U.S. Marines pull down the statue of Saddam Hussein. Photo by Mirrorpix/Getty Images

A group of Iraqi artists erected another statue in its place two months later. The 23-foot sculpture portrays an Iraqi family holding a crescent moon and sun.

Statue in Baghdad's Firdos Square. Photo by Larisa Epatko

Watch for Margaret Warner's series on Iraq airing next week on the NewsHour.

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