Taking Control
Ahmad Zaki Abd Razaq, an assistant to the former head of police in Baghdad, is patted down by a U.S. Marine before being allowed to enter the Palestine Hotel. He offered to help U.S. troops reactivate the police force in the capital. (Bryan Chan / LAT)
April 13, 2003
Lt. Gen. Earl B. Hailston , commander of the Marine Forces Pacific, wades through a crowd of Marines in the lobby of a building they took in eastern Baghdad. The general congratulated them on their victory but warned that there is still much to be done. As fewer troops are needed to fight, U.S. and British commanders are increasingly turning their attention to maintaining order. (Rick Loomis / LAT)
A U.S. marine shouts orders as they take positions on the east bank of Tigris river during a firefight in Baghdad. (Hussein Malla / AP)
A statue of Saddam Hussein remains standing amid the rubble of the Iraqi air force headquarters in Baghdad. The building was destroyed by allied bombing. (Jerome Delay / AP)
Marines interrogate an Iraqi prisoner in Nasiriyah. The prisoner and two others were picked up fleeing from the Marines while trying to discard military uniforms and IDs. (Chris Hondros / Getty Images)
U.S. troops carry an Iraqi soldier’s body in a tarp to a gravesite near a highway in western Baghdad . Soldiers spent the day clearing the road to prepare it for civilian traffic. (Bahram Mark Sobhani / AP)
A Baghdad building was bombed last week after the U.S. got a tip that Iraqi leaders were meeting there. But some nearby residents think the wrong building was bombed. (Bryan Chan / LAT)
Sheik Lami Abbas Ajali visits the Nasiriyah detention center where he was tortured by members of the Hussein regime. His interrogators pressed him on whether he was a member of the Iranian Dawa party. He came to the detention center after it was bombed by U.S. forces. (Don Bartletti / LAT)