Victory Arch

Stand at the edge of the great parade ground and look up. Two enormous bronze forearms rise out of the earth, each one gripping a curved steel sword. High above the road, the two blades cross. Then, a little way down the avenue, the same image appears again — a second pair of arms and a second pair of crossed swords. The space between them is wide and open, built for marching feet and slow-moving tanks. On a hot afternoon, the light glares off the steel, and the whole scene feels larger than any human scale should allow.

This is the Victory Arch, though many people know it by another name: the Swords of Qadisiyah. It stands in central Baghdad, at the edges of a vast ceremonial square, inside the area that became known as the Green Zone after 2003. It is not an arch in the classical sense, like a Roman gateway of carved stone. Instead, it is a pair of gateways made from bodies and weapons. Each gateway marks one end of a long parade route.

The monument was commissioned by Saddam Hussein, the president of Iraq at the time. It celebrates what his government presented as Iraq's victory in the war with Iran. That war began in 1980 and lasted eight years. It ended in a ceasefire in 1988, with no clear winner and enormous losses on both sides. The arch opened the following year, in 1989, as a statement in bronze and steel about how the regime wished that war to be remembered.

The name carries a deliberate echo. Qadisiyah was a battle fought in the seventh century, when early Arab Muslim armies defeated the forces of the Sasanian Persian Empire. That victory helped bring Islam to the lands that are now Iran. By naming the monument after it, the government linked a modern war to an ancient triumph of Arabs over Persians. Saddam's state media used the same name for the Iran–Iraq war itself, calling it Saddam's Qadisiyah.

Now look closely at the hands. Here is the first detail many visitors miss. The forearms are widely reported to be modelled on Saddam Hussein's own arms. Accounts say casts were taken from his arms, and that his thumbprint was reproduced on the bronze. So the hands holding these swords are not an anonymous soldier's hands. They are meant to be the hands of the leader himself, lifting the blades over his capital.

The design is said to have started from a sketch by Saddam. The Iraqi sculptor Khalid al-Rahal developed the work, and after his death, another leading Iraqi sculptor, Mohammed Ghani Hikmat, carried it to completion. Both men were among the most respected artists of modern Iraq. Mohammed Ghani Hikmat's fountains and statues still stand in other parts of Baghdad. If you travel around the city, you may recognise his hand in its public art.

Next, look down at the base of each forearm. Here is the second detail that surprises people. Around the wrists hang large nets, and the nets are filled with real metal helmets. These are helmets taken from Iranian soldiers during the war. Some of them spill out of the nets and onto the ground. Reports say others were set into the surface of the road, so that vehicles in a parade would drive over them. Few monuments anywhere place the belongings of fallen enemies so directly under the feet of the crowd.

The swords themselves carry another layer of meaning. According to the official story at the time, the steel came partly from the melted weapons of Iraqi soldiers who died in the war. It is hard to confirm exactly how much of the metal had that origin. But the intention was clear. The monument was meant to hold the war inside its very materials — the weapons of Iraq's dead above, the helmets of Iran's dead below.

The space around the arches was built for spectacle. During Saddam's rule, the square hosted military parades, with soldiers, vehicles, and crowds filling the long avenue. Saddam himself appeared at the opening ceremony on horseback, riding beneath the crossed swords. Imagine the sound of marching boots echoing across this flat expanse, and the reviewing stands filled with officials. Today, on a quiet day, the same space can feel almost empty, and the wind moves freely across the pavement.

After the American-led invasion in 2003, the monument took on a strange new life. Foreign soldiers photographed themselves beneath the swords, and the image of the crossed blades travelled around the world in news reports. In 2007, Iraqi authorities began work to take the monument apart, seeing it as a symbol of the old regime. Then the work stopped. Some Iraqis argued that the arches were part of the country's history and should remain, whatever they once stood for.

That argument shaped what you see now. The monument was later restored, and the square was returned to use for official ceremonies. For many Baghdadis, the arches are no longer simply Saddam's monument. They are also a reminder of a war that touched almost every family in Iraq, and of the hundreds of thousands who died on both sides of the border. The same steel can carry pride, grief, and anger at once, depending on who is looking.

As you walk between the two gateways, notice how the design plays with distance. From far away, the crossed swords look like a single clean shape against the sky. As you come closer, the details grow heavier — the veins on the bronze arms, the dense knots of the nets, the dull curves of the helmets. The monument is built to impress from a distance and to unsettle up close. Take a moment to stand directly under one of the crossings and look straight up.

When you are ready to leave, turn back once more toward the swords. Notice the ordinary life around them now — the traffic on nearby roads, the palm trees, the sounds of a large city carrying on. The arches were made to fix one version of history in metal forever. Yet the people of Baghdad have kept living, arguing, and remembering in their own ways. As you walk away, let the blades shrink behind you, and listen to the city that outlasted the parades.