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US forces welcomed in Baghdad, Saddam's rule ends
by Reuters
Wednesday, Apr. 09, 2003 at 12:20 PM
Iraqis celebrate as US troops take Baghdad
By Khaled Yacoub Oweis
BAGHDAD, April 9 (Reuters) - U.S. troops swept into the heart of Baghdad to an ecstatic welcome on Wednesday, as Saddam Hussein's 24-year rule crumbled into chaos and looting.
As U.S. Marines rolled in from the east on day 21 of the war, hundreds of people gutted official buildings, hauling off anything from airconditioners to flowers.
"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 Saddam with his shoe. "He killed our youth, he killed millions."
There was no word on the fate of Saddam or his sons, targeted by U.S. planes that dropped four 2,000-pound (900-kg) bombs on a western residential area of the city on Monday.
"It is not known whether Saddam and sons were present and whether they survived the attack," a CIA official said.
Marines seized a headquarters of Saddam's feared secret police, Reuters correspondent Sean Maguire reported. The deserted Directorate of General Security building in an eastern district was already being looted when the Marines arrived.
U.S. troops deployed in Tahrir Square, in the core of this sprawling city of five million, and at the Palestine Hotel, base for media covering the war, on the east bank of the Tigris.
In a deeply insulting Arab gesture, people hurled shoes at a giant statue of Saddam outside the hotel. They rigged ropes to haul it down and hacked at the base with a sledgehammer.
President George W. Bush was heartened by "very good" progress in Iraq, a senior administration official said.
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 missing since Tuesday. He was feared wounded when his vehicle came under fire. Two other ICRC staffers in the vehicle escaped.
GREETING THE MARINES
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 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 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 the Gulf War, when U.S. forces failed to intervene.
U.S. war ally Britain said Iraqi "command and control" of Baghdad seemed to have disintegrated. But Prime Minister Tony Blair's spokesman said Saddam loyalists might still resist.
Reuters Television crews watched cheering crowds sack U.N. headquarters in the Canal Hotel and drive off in U.N. cars. The building had housed U.N. aid workers as well as arms inspectors, who were withdrawn shortly before the war began on March 20.
Invasion forces have yet to find any banned chemical or biological arms, a key justification for the war. Saddam's government denied possessing them.
U.S. troops stood by as looters raided sports shops around the bombed headquarters of the Iraqi Olympic Committee, headed by Saddam's elder son Uday, who also led the Fedayeen militia.
Elsewhere, an Iraqi waving a rifle yelled: "We are Americans, we are USA." Another screamed: "Thank you Mr Bush."
www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/888913/posts
Let's see a caption for this...
by Reuters
Wednesday, Apr. 09, 2003 at 12:20 PM
www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/888913/posts
![[masthead]](/images/masthead_140.png)