Ten years ago today, the day Baghdad fell to American troops, I wrote that with the downfall of Saddam Hussein, I finally felt free as a journalist to criticize the Iraqi regime under my own byline without fear of reprisal from Saddam’s henchmen in Beirut, where I then lived. The evening that I called “my first day of freedom,” when Iraqis pulled down Saddam’s statue in Fardous Square, I decided to return to Baghdad. It was my first trip back in 21 years. Reconnecting with relatives, I was at my aunt’s when her husband, Jaafar, said Saddam’s demise was the end of a nightmare. “The new Iraq belongs to you and Sadeq,” he said, referring to his son, my cousin.