- (Reuters) - Saddam Hussein's rule collapsed in chaos
in Baghdad on Wednesday as elated Iraqis welcomed U.S. forces while looters
and gunmen ran wild.
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- As U.S. Marines rolled in from the east to a joyous reception
on day 21 of the war, hundreds of people gutted official buildings, dragging
off all they could carry, from air conditioners to flowers.
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- "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."
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- There was no word on the fate of Saddam or his sons,
targeted by U.S. planes that dropped four 2,000-pound bombs on a residential
area in Baghdad on Tuesday.
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- "It is not known whether Saddam and sons were present
and whether they survived the attack," a CIA official said.
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- About 20 U.S. tanks and other vehicles deployed in Tahrir
Square on the east bank of the Tigris river in the heart of this sprawling
city of five million, a Reuters correspondent said.
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- President Bush was heartened by "very good"
progress in Iraq, a senior administration official said.
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- Sporadic shooting in parts of Baghdad prompted the International
Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) to suspend its operations, citing "chaotic
and unpredictable" conditions.
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- The Geneva-based agency said Canadian ICRC staffer Vatche
Arslanian had been missing since Tuesday. It feared he had been badly wounded
when his vehicle came under fire. Two other ICRC staffers in the vehicle
escaped.
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- GREETING THE MARINES
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- Joyful crowds threw flowers and cheered as U.S. Marines
drove into the city from the sprawling eastern suburb of Saddam City, home
to about two million impoverished Shi'ite Muslims.
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- "I believe we are on the last leg," Marine
Col. John Toolan told Reuters correspondent Sean Maguire, with the Marines
on their triumphal ride through the suburbs to the Martyr's Monument, just
three miles from the center.
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- "No more Saddam Hussein," chanted one group,
waving to troops as they passed. "We love you, we love you."
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- 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.
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- 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 could still offer paramilitary resistance
in places.
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- 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.
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- Invasion forces have yet to find any banned chemical
or biological arms. Saddam's government denied possessing them.
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- 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 leads the Fedayeen militia.
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- Elsewhere, an Iraqi waving a rifle yelled: "We are
Americans, we are USA." Another screamed: "Thank you, Mr. Bush."
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- U.S. FORCES PUSH IN
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- Thousands of U.S. troops moved toward the center overnight
from the west, northeast and south, meeting little resistance.
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- Residents woke to the sound of birdsong and only occasional
shooting after one of calmest nights in three weeks of war.
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- There were no signs of Iraqi police or uniformed men
on the main streets. Information Ministry officials who have shadowed reporters
through the conflict were nowhere to be seen.
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- Even Information Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf, who
has turned up daily during the war and poured abuse on the Americans, failed
to make an appearance.
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- The U.S. military said a crucial point had been reached
at which ordinary people realized Saddam's rule was over.
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- "I think we are at a degree of a tipping point where
for the population there is a broader recognition that this regime is coming
to an end and will not return in a way that it has been in the past,"
Brigadier-General Vincent Brooks said.
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- He said the military campaign would go on to pursue "regime
appendages" in various parts of Iraq.
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- U.S.-led forces have yet to occupy northern cities such
as Mosul, Kirkuk and Tikrit, Saddam's birthplace and power base, 110 miles
north of the capital.
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- U.S. and Kurdish forces dislodged Iraqis from a mountain
used to defend Mosul, their biggest victory yet in the north.
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- "That area was heavily defended by Iraqis throughout
the campaign. From our perspective this is the most important gain of the
northern front so far," said Hoshiyar Zebari, political adviser to
Kurdistan Democratic Party leader Massoud Barzani.
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- Zebari said U.S. forces and Kurdish fighters took Maqloub
mountain, some nine miles northeast of Mosul, overnight.
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- POSTWAR IRAQ
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- On world markets, investors sold stocks and the dollar
as they looked beyond the war in Iraq to focus on worries about the global
economy. Safe-haven assets gained. Oil prices steadied after an early rise
on a possible OPEC output cut.
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- With the battle for Baghdad almost over, the issue of
ruling and reconstructing a post-Saddam Iraq loomed larger.
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- France and Britain, papering over their differences on
the war, agreed on the need for international involvement.
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- French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin said after
meeting British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw that he backed a U.S.-British
pledge to give the United Nations a vital role.
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- "The more united the international community is,
the better the chances of the process being successful," Villepin
added.
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- France is concerned about how much control Washington
will have over postwar Iraq.
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- Straw said U.S. and British troops were likely to remain
in place immediately after the war to assure security.
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- "Britain and the United States want to see the creation
of a representative, democratic Iraqi government as fast as possible, but
it can't happen overnight," he said.
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- A fledgling U.S.-led civil administration preparing to
steer Iraq through the immediate postwar period said it wanted to earn
Iraqis' trust by keeping up a steady flow of aid.
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- "In many ways we are learning as we go," said
Major Jeff Jurgensen of the Office for Reconstruction and Humanitarian
Assistance (ORHA), speaking a day after an ORHA team arrived in the southern
port of Umm Qasr to set up operations.
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- ORHA is headed by retired General Jay Garner, who reports
to U.S. war commander General Tommy Franks.
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