"We blew it up with a tank emblazoned with courtesy red, white and blue," Major Mike Birmingham, of the US Third Infantry Division, boasted.

"One shot, one kill," he said.

The tank was among 65 in a US force which drove deep into the Iraqi capital Monday, taking over two of Saddam's luxurious presidential palace.

The destruction of the statue was part of the US-British coalition's message to the Iraqi people, blowing apart symbols of Saddam's power to show that only the Iraqi president's regime was being targeted, not civilians.

Birmingham said the tank encountered "small pockets, very little limited resistance" as it drove up to the statue, which he said was the main representation of the Iraqi leader in central Baghdad.

"Apparently it's the big statue in downtown," he said.

US Brigadier General Vincent Brooks told journalists in Qatar Monday that the United States' focus was not on hunting down Saddam, despite repeated missile strikes on the president's palaces, following one on the first day of the war on March 20 that sought to assassinate him.

SPACE.WIRE