Westerly Photojournal Files: Iraq in Photos and Footnotes

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**click on the images to go directly to a large selection of James Dales very interesting photos* as well as very informative bios of each image*

I was wondering about the backdrop of the sword arch in many photos of the troops, and this is what I found out:

The Swords of Qādisīyah, Baghdad To celebrate his victory (actually a draw) over Iran, Saddam decided to build a Triumphal Arch. The concept of a triumphal arch is a European import, without precedent in the Middle East since Roman times. The colossal Hands of Victory monument has dominated Baghdad's skyline since the end of the Iran-Iraq war. Built in duplicate, it marks the entrances to a large new parade ground in central Baghdad, towering 140 feet above the highway. The triumphal arch is shaped as two pairs of crossed swords, made from the guns of dead Iraqi soldiers that were melted and recast as the 24-ton blades of the swords. Captured Iranian helmets are in a net held between the swords. And surrounding the base of the arms are another 5,000 Iranian helmets taken from the battle field. The fists that hold the swords aloft are replicas of Saddam Hussein's own hands. The German company that built the monument, H+H Metalform, said it was given a photograph of Saddam's own forearms to use as a model.

When Saddam inaugurated these triumphal arches, he rode under them on a white horse - an allusion to the steed of Hussein, the Shi'ite Muslim hero martyred at nearby Kerbala. The day before the first bombing run on Bhagdad during the 1991 Gulf War, Iraqi TV showed a mass of Iraqi soldiers marching beneath the huge crossed swords of the Victory Arch, to the theme music from 'Star Wars'. In April 1998 Iraq's volunteers paraded for six hours in Baghdad's Grand Festivities Square, the large outdoor arena marked by the two sets of enormous crossed swords.