Fifteen faces of the Iraq war. What happened next?

[deminks]

http://www.channel4.com/news/iraq-war-10-year-anniversary-invasion-blair-bush

(snip)

Mohammed Saeed Al-Sahhaf
Then: few elements of the Iraq invasion were as surreal as the briefings from Saddam Hussein's information minister. Even as tracer-fire lit the skies and coalition tanks rolled into Baghdad, the bespectacled official held daily briefings insisting Iraq was in the ascendancy. It earned him a cult fan following, including George Bush, and won him the nickname "Comical Ali".

Now: released soon after giving himself up to US forces in June 2003, he is understood to be living a far lower-profile life in the United Arab Emirates.

(Baghdad Bob)

(snip)

Muqtada Al-Sadr
Then: the Shia cleric rose to become one of the most influential political and military figures in post-Saddam Iraq. Bolstered by the support of Iraq's empoverished Shia majority, he founded the powerful and anti-American Mahdi army. Paul Bremer, the US administrator in Iraq, declared al-Sadr an outlaw in 2004 and vowed that uprisings by his followers would not be tolerated.

Now: so powerful has al-Sadr become that he is indispensable to the new government, wileding significant influence in the Iraqi parliament. Many credited him when the US finally withdrew from Iraq at the end of 2011. Posters of the cleric have since been seen in Firdous Square - the area in Baghdad where the statue of Saddam Hussein was famously toppled in April 2003.

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