By Rajiv Chandrasekaran
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, April 16, 2003; Page A29

TIKRIT, Iraq, April 15 -- During Saddam Hussein's rule, every Iraqi town big enough to have a public school or a police station had at least a few larger-than-life portraits of the president. Here in Tikrit, the center of Hussein's ancestral region, his visage has been particularly prominent -- on lampposts, in the highway median, in front of every government office.

During the past few weeks, as U.S. tanks have moved through, those portraits have been smashed, ripped and pocked with bullet holes in acts of anger and catharsis across most of the country. But not in Tikrit. Even though hundreds of Marines rolled into town Monday morning, nobody has dared to deface Hussein's portraits here. Large tile mosaics still show Hussein standing next to a flag, wearing a fedora, toting a hunting rifle -- as shiny as they were a few days ago.

"The people are afraid," said Jaleel Ahmed, a 75-year-old retiree, as he walked down a deserted street. "They think his relatives may come back and kill them."

In Tikrit, a town regarded as the last significant stronghold of Hussein's government, there have been no public expressions of joy at the arrival of U.S. troops, no notable attempts to test newfound liberties by looting and engaging in public debate, as there have been in many other Iraqi towns and cities. Here in the shadow of two massive palaces whose compounds are larger than the surrounding town, the fear that defined Hussein's Baath Party's three decades in power is as pervasive as ever.

So too is the adulation of a population that lived large on Hussein's generosity. Once an insignificant farming town on the banks of the Tigris River, Tikrit blossomed into perhaps Iraq's most prosperous community because of the leader's vast contributions. The hospital here has advanced diagnostic equipment, while those elsewhere lack bedsheets. Tikrit's public schools have carpeting and flush toilets -- unheard-of luxuries in other parts of Iraq. Many families even received direct cash subsidies from Hussein.

In a country where family ties matter, many here consider themselves Hussein's relatives, even if only through tenuous connections or tribal affiliations, enhancing the sense of loyalty to a man who may be dead, on the run or in hiding.

As U.S. forces and Iraqi exiles seek to cleanse this nation of Baathist ideology, Tikrit could pose a particular challenge. Many hard-core Hussein supporters are believed to have fled here from Baghdad and cities in southern Iraq, and their apparent refusal to change their stripes has the potential to vex a new government.

A visit to the town today was like a trip back to the Iraq of a month ago, save for dozens of armored Marine vehicles parked around key intersections: Nobody, at least in public, had anything bad to say about Hussein.

"We hope he will come back," said Mohammed Reghli, 35, as he sat on a plastic chair in front of a hardware store with about a dozen other men. "We grieve his departure. He is the son of this town, and he remains in our hearts."

Reghli said he was a physical education teacher at the local primary school. But he comported himself with the swagger of a security agent. When others in the group were asked about their views of Hussein, he insisted he spoke for the crowd.

Eventually, with a slightly pained expression on his face, the owner of the hardware store ventured a comment. "We love him," Mahmood Shaker said. "I don't have hard feelings for him, because he didn't harm anyone here."

Speaking quietly and refusing to provide their names, a few residents said they had seen former Republican Guard soldiers and Baath security agents driving around town in pickup trucks and late-model sedans. The security men, who used to be able to disperse a group with a glower from afar, have not said or done anything since the Marines rumbled into town, the residents said. But their continued presence has been enough to make opponents careful.

One young man with close-cropped hair who drove up to a group of foreign journalists to venture a few comments about the American presence identified himself as a Republican Guard soldier. He said he had put on civilian clothes as the Marines closed in on the city. But despite the change of attire, his demeanor and comments were little affected by the new authority in town.

"These American troops are not liberation forces," he said. "They came to steal our oil."

He also criticized the Marines' decision to set up a command post at one of Hussein's vast riverfront palaces. "Those palaces are for the people," he said.

Even those without direct connections to the old government and who were speaking without fear of being overheard refused to castigate a man whose statues have been toppled and hit with shoes in Baghdad. "He didn't hurt us," Saud Abdullah, 48, a merchant, said over a cup of coffee in his spacious living room. When Hussein was in power, he said, "if you walked straight and harmed nobody, nobody harmed you."

Abdullah said he hoped Iraq's new government would restore order and be democratically elected -- just as, he claimed, Hussein's was.

Tikrit was supposed to be the place where Hussein and his most ardent supporters would make their last stand. A few months ago, an arsenal of military equipment was scattered to the north and south of the town and a Republican Guard division was assigned to stand guard. But around Tikrit this week, only a handful of bombed-out tanks were visible along the road, not much compared with the detritus that lines the approaches to Baghdad 90 miles to the southeast, suggesting that Hussein had deployed most of his forces to protect the capital.

When the Marines began advancing on Tikrit over the weekend, officers said, they did not encounter any significant resistance from remnants of the Republican Guard. What opposition they faced came largely in the form of Baath militiamen and other paramilitary fighters armed with automatic rifles and rocket-propelled grenades.

As the Marines closed in, residents said, several leaders of large tribes in and around Tikrit urged the fighters to disperse so the city would not be destroyed. Among the tribes to defect, people here said, were the Hadithi, which counts among its members Naji Sabri Hadithi, Hussein's foreign minister.

Several residents said that despite his exhortations to Iraqis to fight the Americans to the last drop of blood, Hussein would support the decision to give up the town without a major battle.

"We know from the bottom of our hearts that he is happy," Reghli said. "We kept his city safe and his palaces safe. He will feel joy, because this place contains his friends, his relatives and whoever else loved him."