This is

CBS I on the world with John Bachelor.

Here's John Bachelor.

It is April 2003, Baghdad, the spring of 2003.

Raith Abdullah Had is in Baghdad and his new book, A Stranger in Your Own City, travels in the Middle East Long War.

Record from that moment the entry of the Americans into the tragedy and mystery of Iraq in the 20th

century and before.

Wraith, congratulations and good evening.

You are in back Baghdad observing these moments before the American armor column arrives.

And at some point you see a gathering of American soldiers and Iraqis, Baghdad citizens, around a statue of

Saddam Hussein and from the Meridian and Sheridan Hotel. I'm following your

reporting. What do you observe and what does it tell you now all these years later

about the American presentation to the citizens of Iraq?

Good evening to you. Good evening. I mean, you know, it's the most

important image is the image that keep repeating itself again and again on TV as if it's that

image to justify all that came after.

I stood there, I saw an American marine unit,

I followed them, I stood in the square,

and I saw these, a few Iraqis who try to topple this statue and you know I have to say the crowd of journalists gathered around the statue which much larger, much bigger than the Iraqis themselves.

And of course all what you see on TV cameras is a group of Iraqis, but if you expand the lens about,

if you stand on the other side,

you would see a much larger group of journalists,

...