The "live TV" version of events in Baghdad (note I'm not calling it "liberation") were staged for propaganda purposes. Likely, the men in the video were paid by US troops.

How can so many otherwise intelligent people fall for shit like that? C'mon people, you think it was coincidence the toppled statue was in the immediate vicinity of the Palestine Hotel, where the international journalists are housed? I can't believe that anyone would think that this was a spontaneous celebration, when a US tank and US soldiers were the ones who toppled the statue. Do people just check their critical faculties at the door when they go home and turn on the propaganda box?

Did that man holding the picture of Saddam and beating it with his shoe, who kept looking at the TV cameras as he did it, look "spontaneous"? Did the men who were actually standing in line just off camera, and taking turns in orderly fashion kicking the picture look like people who were waiting to be liberated, or waiting to get paid by the bribery officer?

Did no one hear Rumsfeld's message in his briefing yesterday, when he said there was bribe money available for Iraqis willing to "cooperate" with US troops?