Saddam Hussein was omnipresent in Baghdad. It was hard to ignore Saddam's stern face looking down from billboards, statues, memorial plaques, festive paintings and colorful mosaics. The starting gun went off for the desecration of Hussein's image during the first week in April when the Iraqis pulled down his statue that was in front of the Palestine Hotel. Within a few days, most portraits in town were damaged or at least partly defaced. When I arrived in Baghdad on Sunday, April 13, I immediately started to photograph the Saddam series. The first two days I documented most of the portraits.
A week later, most of them were already gone. History.
- Teun Voeten
Photographing Saddam, photographs by Teun Voeten. (Via Retecool)