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$1.20* Includes GST Freight Extra ($1.40 Tas)THURSDAY APRIL 10 2003

IRAQ CELEBRATES - SPECIAL 8AM EDITION

Jubilant Baghdad tastesits f irst night of freedom

Peter WilsonBaghdad

THE Baghdad night rang with

cheers and chants as the Iraqi

capital celebrated the end of a

tyrant.

Cries of ‘‘Shame on you Sad-dam’’, ‘‘USA, USA’’ and ‘‘Curse

Saddam’s father’’, echoed in Ara-bic up the city’s broad boulevards,where US Marines were mobbed

by delighted opponents of Sad-damHussein’s 24-year-old regime.

The crowds revelled in the cool

evening, destroying statues and

portraits of Saddam in a repeat of

the scene that followed the fall of

dictatorships from Romania and

the Soviet Union to the Philip-pines of Ferdinand Marcos.

Gunfire and occasional cannon

blasts continued to sound

through the night from battles

between Marines and Baghdad’sremaining staunch hold-outs, butthe sense of relief in this city of 5

million was overwhelming.

In Al-Firdos Square, east of theTigris River, crowds were atop a

huge iron statue of Hussein,which had been toppled from a

crane mounted on a US tank

recovery vehicle.

As dustyMarines and dozens of

TV cameramen watched, 20-oddIraqis bounced on top of the

statue, which soon lost its head

and was trampled under the

tracks of the US military vehicle.

Half a dozen men dragged the

head up and down Al-SadoonStreet,while othershammed itup

for the cameras by stomping on

therestof thestatueorslapping it

with their shoes.

In one of the gravest insults in

Arabic culture, people ranging

from small girls to old men

slapped the Saddam statue and

any portrait on sight, yelling

‘‘crush Saddam underfoot’’.Looting continued in several

parts of the city and the Marines

faced a dangerous task avoiding a

complete breakdown of order.

The challenges of finishing off

Hussein’s armed followers and

then trying to establish a new

regime that has at least some

chance of winning wide support

Continued — Page 2

P

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SADDAM FALLS

Tyrant toppled: A statue of Iraq’s President Saddam Hussein is pulled down in central Baghdad Pictures: Reuters, AP

All Australians, supporters and opponents of thiswar alike, should celebrate what appears to be itsimminent end, and our role in the liberation of Iraq

Editorial — Page 14

Peter Wilson● Baghdad

Welcome: An Iraqi child kisses a US soldier in Baghdad today

IN a defining gesturemarking

the end of Saddam Hussein’sbrutal 24-year iron rule, US

Marines early today helped

thepeopleofBaghdadtopplea

giant statue of the dictator in

the jubilant aftermath of

American tanks rolling into

the heart of the Iraqi capital.Three weeks after the US

launched its assualt on Hussein,Iraq’sUNambassador,Mohammed

Al-Douri, this morning declared:

‘‘The game is over and I hope the

peace will prevail. I hope the Iraqi

people will have a happy life.’’US Defence Secretary Donald

Rumsfeld said Hussein was his-tory after the dramatic uprising

on Iraq’s streets, likening the fall

of Baghdad to the end of commu-nism in Eastern Europe.

‘‘SaddamHussein is now taking

his rightful place alongsideHitler,Stalin, Lenin, Ceausescu in the

pantheon of failed brutal dic-tators, and the Iraqi people are

well on their way to freedom,’’ Mr

Rumsfeld said in Washington.

On the 21st day of Operation

Iraqi Freedom, the last remnants

of the Hussein regime’s authority

in the capital crumbled as Ameri-can forces took control of greater

Baghdad and, amid widescale

looting, exultant crowds cheered,danced, waved and threw flowers

at US soldiers as their tanks

rumbled into town from all cor-ners of the city.

Sweeping aside pockets of

resistance from disorganised mil-itias in the centre of Baghdad, US

tanks and military vehicles drove

unimpeded into the previously

hostile centre of the city.

While Shi’ite Muslims, long

oppressed by the Hussein regime,danced openly in the east of the

city, US troops arrived to a largely

empty central Baghdad, with no

cars on the streets and few people.

Although the welcome was

more subdued, soon after a small

group of men began pulling down

the largemonument toHussein in

the centre of the main shopping

district, a task completed by the

crane of a US Marine M-88 tank

recovery vehicle.

The first popular uprising in the

Iraqi capital began in the northeast

suburbofSaddamCity,agrimslum

areaof largelyShi’iteMuslims,afterthousands of US Marines swept

through yesterday morning.

The incursion through the poor

neighbourhood, home to about

2million, prompted hundreds of

mostly young Iraqimen to take to

the streets, waving palm fronds

and repeatedly chanting ‘‘theman is an enemy of God’’, refer-ring to Hussein.

A Shi’ite Muslim leader told a

group of 400 to 500 people: ‘‘The

tyrant of the world is finished,thanks to the coalition. ThankGod

for Iraq the victorious.’’Despite taking central Baghdad,

US forces were meeting pockets of

resistance in other parts of the city

and commanders warned there

were still Hussein loyalists fighting

the coalition in northern Iraq.

US President George W. Bush

last night said through spokesman

Ari Fleischer the downfall of the

regime was an ‘‘historic moment’’and it showed the ‘‘freedom’s taste

is unquenchable’’.Iraqi opposition leader Ahmed

Chalabi, a favourite of the Penta-gon and likely to take a leading role

in the post-war administration, tolda rally in the southern Iraqi city of

NasiriyahthatthedaysofHussein’styranny were over.

‘‘I salute you who have suffered

under Saddam’s tyranny and

oppression over so many years. I

can tell you that those days are

finished,’’ Mr Chalabi said.

‘‘We are working hard to see an

Iraq built on the rule of law, democ-racy and the rights of individuals.

We want an Iraq where every

person, regardless of who he is, isequal to the next person.’’

Although a bloody urban battle

forBaghdadwas expectedbymany

observers, the US sweep into the

capital was in fact swift and Amer-ican forces encircling the city faced

little organised resistance after just

twodaysoffightingalongtheTigris

River.

After a second assassination

attempt on Hussein and tank skir-mishes in the city that killed three

journalists, the final day of the

battlecameafteroneofthequietest

nights since the conflict began on

March 20.

By day break, therewere no Iraqi

police or troops on themain streets

and Information Ministry officials

had disappeared. The ubiquitous

Information Minister, Mohammad

Said al-Sahhaf, whose daily brief-ingshadrepresentedthepublicface

of the regime, failed to appear.

The absence of authority and the

arrival of US forces prompted

Continued — Page 2