Moment of pure Hollywood in Saddam's hometown

Moment of pure Hollywood in Saddam's hometown

Luke Harding, Guardian News Service, Tikrit, Iraq

It is not difficult to find a statue of Saddam Hussein in Tikrit,
the town of a thousand Saddams. There is the equine statue of
Saddam - sword in hand - in Tikrit's main square. Then there are
numerous other Saddams - in linen suits, military uniforms, and
wearing Arab headdresses.

Outside Tikrit's football stadium there is even a mural of a
paternal Saddam,with his arm round his elder son Uday.

As you drive into town there is Saddam again - this time
liberating Jerusalem from the back of a white horse. On April 14,
however, the man himself was nowhere to be seen, as American
troops drove nonchalantly into his hometown, encountering little
resistance.

Just before dawn U.S. light armored vehicles that had raced up
from Baghdad arrived at Tikrit's main bridge. On the other side
Kurdish forces advanced through the town's eastern suburbs. Three
Cobra helicopter gunships circled above the shimmering blue
Tigris river, against the majestic backdrop of Saddam's
presidential guesthouse.

It was a moment of sheer Hollywood, with more than a hint of
Apocalypse Now. It took a while before anybody noticed that the
war in Iraq had just ended.

But if Tikrit's residents did not stage the final apocalyptic
Gotterdammerung that many had expected, nor did they greet
coalition forces with flowers. The mood ranged from indifference
to anger.

"The Americans are invaders',' Abdul Raouf, 28, said, staring
sullenly at the American armored vehicles which had just turned
up in Tikrit's main square, next to the black equine statue of a
sword- holding Saddam.

"We love Saddam Hussein here. He was the only Arab leader who
had the guts to stand up to Israel. He hit Israel with 39
rockets.

"The other Arab countries didn't support him. I don't think
Saddam has behaved badly towards his own people. He is a brave
man."

Seemingly oblivious to what had just happened, he added:
"Nobody can defeat him."

Raouf said he had stood within five or six metres of Iraq's
ex-leader, who visited Tikrit frequently.

What would happen now that America had occupied Iraq? "Iraq
will be another Palestine," Raouf predicted.

Few other Tikrit residents expressed much enthusiasm for their
new American rulers.

Scrawled on the wall of one of the town's housing estates were
the words: "Down with America."

On the central traffic junction, meanwhile, at the end of an
avenue lined with tropical date palms, black banners proclaimed
in Arabic the names of Iraqi soldiers. They had all been recently
martyred in the war against America.

"Why shouldn't we like Saddam?" Rassan Hassan, 38, asked, as
he wheeled his bike past a group of U.S. marines. "Saddam didn't
hit us with aeroplanes. He didn't kill our children with bombs.
He didn't shut down our schools."

Hassan said American planes had bombarded Tikrit for more than
a week. There was now no electricity, no water, and virtually
nothing to eat. Everybody was fed up.

Hassan also defended Saddam's fondness for palaces. "George
Bush has got the White House. He has a palace as well, just like
Saddam," he pointed out.

Yesterday, though, it soon became clear that Saddam had many
palaces in Tikrit. There were too many to count. Immediately
above to the town's half-shattered bridge marines were yesterday
setting up their new headquarters in the grounds of the
presidential guesthouse - a vast neo-Babylonian mansion
overlooking the river.

Saddam's gardeners had clearly been at work until the last
moment, watering the rose garden, and the neat flowerbeds of
orange marigolds and daisies. Inside, though, it became clear the
furniture removers had already been and gone.

The marble ballroom with the inscription "Bless our people and
bring justice" was cavernously empty. We tried to take the lift
up to the third floor; it didn't work. Beneath the terrace, U.S.
armored vehicles had blocked a bridge leading to what was clearly
Saddam's private island - several more rococo apartments towering
above an enclave of green.

Just down the road in the Al-Farouk palace, someone had
planted a small American flag on top of its imperial gateway.

"There was minimal resistance," Lt. Greg Starace, explained as
troops relaxed in the shade next to the presidential guesthouse's
twirling Nebuchadnezzarn pillars.

"We were here at first light. We came across a few pockets of
three to 10 guys. They popped their heads up and loosed off.
Soon, though, they were running away, or were no longer in a
position to run away."

Lt. Starace said his 1st Army Reconnaissance Corps had swiftly
achieved all its objectives - destroying only a single
"technical" - a pick-up truck with a machine gun - that fired at
them from across the river. Not everybody yesterday, though, was
unhappy with the arrival of U.S. troops.

At 7 a.m. a group of marines burst into Tikrit's jail. They
rescued its only remaining prisoner - Khalid Jauhr, a 36-year-old
Kurd. Jauhr said he had been captured last Friday by the Saddam
fedayeen when he went to visit some relatives in a nearby
village. The fedayeen had tortured him and shot him in the leg.

"They had been carrying out mock executions. I thought I was
going to die. When the Americans turned up outside the door of my
cell I was a very happy man," he said.

Other Tikrit residents admitted that they had never liked
Saddam very much but had been too scared to complain. "We were
compelled to love Saddam Hussein," Abdul Karim, a 34-year-old
Arab said, as a group of young men played football in a park
across Tikrit's main boulevard, oblivious to the US warplanes
flying overhead.

"He has done many bad things over the past 35 years. The worse
thing is that we don't have any money," Karim said. "People think
that Tikrit is some kind of paradise. In fact everybody is poor."

A short drive south of Tikrit is Owja, the small village where
Saddam Hussein was born on April 28, 1937 - almost 66 years ago.

Nobody in Tikrit was able to shed much light on where Iraq's
president is likely to celebrate his birthday in two weeks' time.
"God knows where he is," one said.

On April 14 the U.S. military cordoned off Owja after reports
that five Saddam fedayeen were holed up inside. They had
apparently beaten up a local villager, unaware that U.S. troops
had already seized the town.

Tikrit traditionally holds a lavish celebration to mark the
president's birth. Even Raouf - a bitter critic of the U.S.
invasion of Iraq - yesterday conceded that the party would
probably be canceled this year. "I don't think anything will
happen," he said. "The game is over."