NATIONAL SECURITY
This American flag famously covered a Saddam statue. Now it’s in a basement.

Tim McLaughlin’s flag once stood for victory in Iraq. Today, the Marine vet is unsure what to do with it or the painful memories it evokes.

By Greg Jaffe
April 9, 2023 at 5:00 a.m. EDT



Tim McLaughlin, who served in Iraq during the first weeks of the U.S. invasion in 2003, in his backyard in New Hampshire with his dog, Waffles. (Cheryl Senter for The Washington Post)

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CONCORD, N.H. — Twenty years ago, Tim McLaughlin’s flag briefly came to symbolize victory in Iraq and the hope that U.S. military power might democratize the Middle East.

McLaughlin was a young Marine Corps officer whose platoon was among the first American units to reach central Baghdad’s Firdos Square. He and the other Marines were met by a few dozen Iraqis who set out, using a sledgehammer and rope, to tear down a 40-foot statue of Saddam Hussein. The Iraqis’ efforts stalled.

Eventually a Marine vehicle equipped with a giant crane was summoned. Tens of millions of people watched worldwide as McLaughlin’s American flag was briefly draped over the statue head of the overthrown dictator. The Marine vehicle’s engines roared and broke the statue off at its shins.

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During the fall of Baghdad on April 9, 2003, U.S. Marines prepare to topple the statue of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein in Firdos Square. It was three weeks after the United States invaded. (Ramzi Haidar/AFP/Getty Images)

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Marine Gunnery Sgt. Leon Lambert, left, and Cpl. Edward Chin. (Alexandra Boulat/VII/Redux)

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Chin covers the statue’s face with McLaughlin’s flag. (Jerome Delay/AP)



Worldwide, tens of millions of people watched as the statue fell. (Jerome Delay/AP)

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McLaughlin’s bedroom closet holds some of his war mementos. (Cheryl Senter for The Washington Post)

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By Greg Jaffe
Greg Jaffe is a national reporter with The Washington Post; he has spent more than a decade covering the military. He’s the co-author of “The Fourth Star: Four Generals and the Epic Struggle for the Future of the United States Army.” Twitter https://twitter.com/GregJaffe