In the afternoon of April 9, 2003, a group of Iraqi civilians began to attack the statue. One such futile attempt by sledgehammer-wielding weightlifter Kadhem Sharif Al-Jabbouri caught media attention.[4] Shortly after, an advance unit of the United States Marine Corps from the 3rd Battalion, 4th Marines[5] arrived at Firdos Square, secured the area, and contacted the foreign journalists who had been quartered in the Palestine Hotel at the square. After a couple of hours, the U.S. Marines toppled the statue with an M88 armored recovery vehicle.[6]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saddam_Hussein_statue_destruction