Saddam's rule 'crumbles'

Saddam Hussein's rule over Iraq crumbled yesterday as US forces swept into the heart of Baghdad, taking control of the capital and toppling a huge statue of the man who towered over the country for 24 years.

Amid chaotic scenes of rejoicing, looting and gunfire, Iraqis danced and trampled on the fallen six-metre high metal statue in contempt for the man who had held them in fear for so long.

In scenes recalling the 1989 fall of the Berlin Wall, Iraqis hacked at the statue's marble plinth with a sledgehammer. Youths hooked a noose around the statue's neck and attached the rope to a Marine armoured vehicle, which dragged it over.

Iraqi fighters offered little resistance as US troops thrust through the sprawling city of five million. But even after dark some firing still echoed through the West bank of the Tigris river, possibly from tanks, Reuters correspondents said.

There was no word on the fate of President Saddam or his sons, targeted by US planes that bombed a western residential area of the city on Monday. A CIA official said he did not know if the Iraqi leader had survived the attack.

President Saddam, who led Iraq through three wars and decades of suffering after taking power in 1979, had vowed to crush a US and British invasion launched three weeks ago to overthrow him.

But looters yesterday gutted official buildings, hauling off anything from air conditioners to flowers. The Finance Ministry was ablaze late in the day, though it was unclear how the fire had started.

"People, if you only knew what this man did to Iraq," yelled an old man standing in the road, thrashing at a torn portrait of President Saddam with his shoe - a traditional Arab insult.

"He killed our youth, he killed millions."

The White House said President George W. Bush was pleased with the military progress in Iraq, but remained cautious because he knew great danger could still lie ahead.

"What you're seeing in parts of Baghdad is only that, one section of Baghdad. There are many dangerous areas of Baghdad for our armed forces that remain. There are many other cities in Iraq that are dangerous," said spokesman Ari Fleischer.

Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld declared it a very good day but said "difficult and very dangerous days" lay ahead in which fighting would continue.

"We still must capture, account for or otherwise deal with Saddam Hussein, his sons and the senior Iraqi leadership," he told a Pentagon news conference.

Vice President Dick Cheney told a meeting of US newspaper editors in New Orleans that US and Iraqi officials would meet near Nassiriya in southern Iraq on Saturday to begin planning for an interim Iraqi government.

The United States plans to install a civil administration under a retired US general to prepare for the eventual creation of an interim government run by the Iraqis.

Gunfire and explosions echoed intermittently across Baghdad during the day, intensifying at dusk, especially in the western Mansur district, scene of Monday's air raid aimed at President Saddam.

Tank and artillery fire could be heard across the Tigris by Reuters correspondents on the eastern bank of the river at the Palestine Hotel, overlooking the fallen Saddam statue. Burning cars blocked a Tigris bridge by the Information Ministry.

President Bush's war ally, British Prime Minister Tony Blair, said it was too early to declare military victory in Iraq.

"This conflict is not over yet. There is still resistance, not broadly spread among the Iraqi people, but among those parts of President Saddam's regime that want to cling on to power," he said.

Marines seized a headquarters of President Saddam's feared secret police in Baghdad, correspondent Sean Maguire reported. The deserted Directorate of General Security building in an eastern district was already being looted when the Marines arrived.

Sporadic shooting in parts of Baghdad prompted the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) to suspend its operations, citing "chaotic and unpredictable" conditions.

It said Canadian ICRC staffer Vatche Arslanian had been killed by crossfire in his vehicle in eastern Baghdad on Tuesday night. Two other ICRC staffers escaped.

Jubilant crowds threw flowers and cheered as Marines drove into the city from the vast eastern township of Saddam City, home to about two million impoverished Shi'ite Muslims.

"No more Saddam Hussein," chanted one group, waving to troops as they passed. "We love you, we love you."

Some Shi'ites, part of a majority community largely hostile to President Saddam's Sunni-led Baathist government, beat their chests as they do during the Shi'ite religious festival of Ashoura.

As word of events in Baghdad spread, rejoicing crowds took to the streets in the Kurdish-held northern city of Arbil.

Iraqi Kurds hate President Saddam for his ferocious campaigns against them. His forces used poison gas on the Kurdish town of Halabja in 1988 at the height of a crackdown that killed tens of thousands, and crushed a Kurdish revolt after the 1991 Gulf War.

Iraqi troops also brutally suppressed Shi'ite uprisings after that Gulf War, when US forces failed to intervene.

In Halabja, tears streamed down the face of Fakhradeen Saleem, who lost three children in the 1988 chemical attack, as he watched television images of President Saddam's government crumbling.

Invasion forces have yet to find any banned chemical or biological arms, a key justification for the war. Saddam's government denied possessing them.

Cheering crowds earlier sacked UN headquarters in the Canal Hotel and drove off in UN cars. The building had housed UN aid workers as well as arms inspectors, who were withdrawn shortly before the war began on March 20.

People across the Arab world watched in disbelief as Baghdad succumbed with barely a fight.

Most Arabs have no love for Saddam but his defiance towards the United States had gone down well in a region angry at Washington's support for Israel, perceived interference in Arab affairs and the presence of US forces in Arab countries.

The US military said a crucial point had been reached at which ordinary people realised President Saddam's rule was over.

Brigadier-General Vincent Brooks also said the war would go on to pursue "regime appendages" in various parts of Iraq.

US-led forces have yet to occupy northern cities such as Mosul, Kirkuk and Tikrit, President Saddam's birthplace and tribal power base, 175 km north of the capital.

US and Kurdish forces dislodged Iraqis from a mountain used to defend Mosul, their biggest victory yet in the north.