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.