CPA Press Release
For further Information, contact Chip Beck
beckc@orha.centcom.mil

Iraqi Artist Sculpts Homage to Fallen Soldiers

Baghdad -- During the Saddam era, the Iraqi artist who goes by the nomme d’art of “Kalat, was required to create hundreds of statues of the megalomaniacal dictator, Saddam Hussein.  After Operation Iraqi Freedom, Kalat  was so grateful for his new-found liberty that he decided to melt down three bronze busts of Saddam and sculpt a new creation honoring the fallen Americans who gave their lives for his freedom and that of his country. The statue in honor of the heroic Coalition forces was a true work of love

 It is being moved from its former place of honor in the 4th Infantry Division’s Headquarters in Tikrit, to a permanent home at Fort Hood, Texas, also the permanent home fo the 4th ID.

As an epilogue, a photograph of Kalat’s bronze statue circulated around the internet and was seen by Dick Brickley, an Army veteran and Ice Alaska chairman in Fairbanks. Brickly asked Jinichi Nakamura, a world famous Japanese ice sculptor to duplicate the Kalat work for the Fairbanks International Ice Sculpture competitions.

When “Kalat,” decided to pour out his emotions via the re-shaping of melted bronze from old Saddam statutes, he probably never thought that he would be an inspiration to another sculptor half a world away in a land of ice and snow. But that’s exactly what happened.