Jubilant Iraqis tied a noose around a
huge statue of Saddam Hussein in the heart of Baghdad and pelted it with shoes on Wednesday as the Iraqi president's 24-year rule crumbled in chaos.
In scenes reminiscent of the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, crowds cheered as men climbed the huge statue of Saddam
in the center of Baghdad and placed the rope around the neck in preparation to topple it.
One man swung at the marble pedestal with a sledgehammer,another tore a metal plaque off the plinth.
The gesture of contempt for the man who has led Iraq with an iron grip for a quarter of a century was watched by U.S. troops who had rumbled into the square in tanks a few minutes earlier.
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