In March 2003, a statue of Saddam Hussein was still standing near a communications center in Baghdad that had been bombed two days earlier. A month later, the statue would be downed as well.Credit...Tyler Hicks/The New York Times

REPORTER’S NOTEBOOK

What I Saw as the U.S. Debacle in Iraq Unfurled

The Americans did not understand the country when they invaded in 2003. From the earliest days, there were signs of the trouble ahead, our correspondent recalls.

In March 2003, a statue of Saddam Hussein was still standing near a communications center in Baghdad that had been bombed two days earlier. A month later, the statue would be downed as well.Credit...Tyler Hicks/The New York Times

Listen · 9:09 min

By Alissa J. Rubin

Alissa J. Rubin has been a foreign correspondent for The Times for almost two decades, reporting across the Middle East, Afghanistan and Europe.

Sept. 30, 2026

I got to Iraq a few weeks after the U.S. Army did. It was just a couple of days after the statue of the Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein was pulled down in Baghdad by a crowd that included U.S. Marines.

That was April 2003.

Further Reading: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/30/world/middleeast/iraq-us-troop-withdrawal.html?campaign_id=346&emc=edit_wor_20261001&instance_id=182838&nl=the-world&regi_id=62157677&segment_id=227339&user_id=4c4808a9060079cbdb4a209dfd38dc67