Single pictures that capture history's turning points

The toppling, on live television, of Saddam Hussein's statue in the centre of Baghdad may become the war image which imprints itself on popular memory. The White House and Downing Street will certainly hope so.

Other images will offer competing reminders that – for some – this was not just a glorious war of liberation. Remember, for example, the boy who lost his parents and his arms in an air raid.

But in terms of drama – of a shared moment of release, and relief, for an oppressed people – the fall of the statue is likely to be the shot we remember. It will take its place alongside other such moments: US Marines erecting the Stars and Stripes above Iwo Jima in 1945; the last helicopter lifting off the US embassy in Saigon in 1975; the crowds dancing on the Berlin Wall in 1989; the release of Nelson Mandela in 1990; Boris Yeltsin jumping onto a tank to defeat the Communist coup in 1991; the aircraft flying into the twin towers in 2001.

Unlike most of these, the toppling of the statue (what a poor likeness, by the way) was partly staged. It was a photo-op as much as a mom- ent in time. Several efforts were made to get it right.

Consternation must have been felt in Washington and London when two marines – doubtless remembering their forefathers on Iwo Jima – scaled the statue to wrap the head in the Stars and Stripes. That was not the picture the world was supposed to see. This was a war of liberation, not a war of conquest. One can imagine the political movie directors in the Pentagon screaming down the hot-line to the field commander telling him to get rid of it.

The marines tried again with an Iraqi flag, provided by the crowd. No, no, the director must have shouted again. We cannot show the world a shot which presents us toppling the Iraqi flag – only toppling Saddam Hussein.

Eventually, the marines got it right and pulled the statue over. It turned out to be hollow, failing to tumble with a satisfying crash but slumping to the horizontal – rather like the regime.

At last the US and Britain had the clear, simple image they had dreamed of to present to the Arab world and their own public opinion. Presid-ent Saddam's fate may still be uncertain but his statue had been torn apart live on television and Baghdadis had danced on the pieces.