7 Years On - A Vignette From The Day Before Invasion

We will all remember the horrible pictures of the bombardment and the spin of the war-hungry, gung-ho media around the carnage.

It was, however, the events of the previous day that set the standard for how the rest of the war was to be conducted by the doughty liberators of Iraq.

This was the attack on Dora Farms outside Baghdad where some Iraqi whispered into his phone that Saddam Hussein was visiting his children. Down hurtled four 2000-pound bunker-busters and 40 cruise missiles. There were high fives in the White House situation room at news of a mangled Saddam being hauled from the rubble. It all turned out to be nonsense, like most military bulletins out of Iraq. The bunker busters all missed the compound. Saddam Hussein wasn’t there. Uday and Qusay weren’t there. Fifteen civilians died, including nine women and a child.

History, written by the victors of course, does not record their names. And so it went.