Baghdad, Iraq ? In a garage filled with classic motorcycles, Khadim al-Jubouri stared at the 4-year-old magazines he usually keeps tucked inside a wooden desk. All of them contained photographs of a lone, burly man wearing a black tank top and swinging a sledgehammer into the base of a tall, bronze statue of Saddam Hussein. The man was al-Jubouri.

Just days earlier, he might have been executed for his actions.

But it was April 9, 2003.

Crowds of chanting Iraqis, some clutching stones and sandals, swarmed Firdaus Square to deliver blows to the statue. Then, with the help of an American tank and a winch, it toppled, creating one of the defining images of the U.S.-led invasion. Over one photo of al-Jubouri, a headline reads: “The Fall of Baghdad.”

“It achieved nothing,” he said, after he had put away the magazines.

Seeking security

Four years after that moment, with violence besieging the country, al-Jubouri is concerned with neither benchmarks nor timelines, troop strengths nor withdrawal dates. What he cares most about is security and order, of which, he said, he has seen very little. He blames Iraq’s Shiite-led government and its security forces, and wishes for a return of the era led by the man whose statue he helped tear down.

“We got rid of a tyrant and tyranny. But we were surprised that after one thief had left, another 40 replaced him,” said al-Jubouri, who is a Shiite Muslim. “Now, we regret that Saddam Hussein is gone, no matter how much we hated him.”

His faith in the United States has also vanished, he said. But he still has a passion for one thing uniquely American: the Harley-Davidson. On the wall of his cluttered office, next to medals he won as a champion weightlifter, hangs a tapestry emblazoned with an American flag, a bald eagle, a Harley and the words: “Born in the USA.”

On most days, however, he cannot afford to buy gas for his own Harley, a 1982 Fat Boy.

‘It’s gotten worse’

His country today is politically fractured and struggling to find direction. He has seen four Iraqi governments since the fall of Saddam. Tens of thousands of Iraqis have died.

But the numbers that most directly affect al-Jubouri are these: Seven of his relatives and friends have been killed, kidnapped or driven from their homes. He gets four hours of electricity a day, if he’s lucky. The costs of cooking gas and fuel have soared, but his income is a quarter of what it used to be.

“It’s gotten worse,” said al-Jubouri, 50, a barrel-chested man with a thick neck and an oval, cleanshaven face. “We can hardly make both ends meet.”

When he passes Firdaus Square these days, he says, he feels a mix of happiness and sorrow. He made no plans to celebrate the anniversary of Saddam’s fall.

‘Bring that statue down’

In the mid-1990s, he was jailed for a year and a half for criticizing the government, he said. A few years later, workers began installing Saddam’s statue in Firdaus Square. “I told myself that my hope in life is to bring that statue down,” al-Jubouri said.

On April 9, 2003, when it was clear that American forces had taken control of the capital and Saddam had fled, he took a sledgehammer from his garage and went to the square.

“As I hit the statue, I was out of my mind. I was full of hatred,” al-Jubouri recalled. “When it fell, I was so happy. I thought things were going to improve.”

Initially, life did get better. Under Saddam, average Iraqis could not import or export motorcycles. Suddenly, al-Jubouri could buy them from Japan, the United Arab Emirates and Lebanon by calling his suppliers on once-unavailable cell phones. The Syrian border was easier to cross, too, he said.

Al-Jubouri sold Harleys to American diplomats and some months earned as much as $5,000, he said. Whenever U.S. soldiers entered Battaween, a rough, industrial neighborhood in central Baghdad, the Americans would stop at his garage to admire his Harleys, he said.

That did not mean he approved of the U.S. presence in Iraq, Jubouri said, but he blamed that on Saddam.

“I hated this guy because he’s the one who brought the Americans, and we hate the Americans and the occupation,” he said.

By 2005, many of his customers had begun leaving the country, at a pace that quickened last year as sectarian violence deepened after the bombing of a Shiite mosque in Samarra. He has sold only four motorcycles in the past year, he said.

Under Saddam, he never faced day-to-day corruption, al-Jubouri said, but now he must pay bribes just to get a license or file a police complaint.

“I feel lost now,” he said.

In his garage are dozens of classic motorcycles – Harleys and BMWs, Triumphs and BSAs. Many are old and rusty, badly in need of repair. But the violence has shut down many nickel and chrome factories. And without electricity, how can he operate his equipment? And without customers, why bother?

“Now, Friday is better than Saturday, and Saturday is better than Sunday,” he said, looking longingly at his Fat Boy.