Four tanks and a similar number of armoured personnel carriers with US marines perched on top arrived at 4:40 pm (1240 GMT) from the southeast at a huge roundabout with the statue in the middle.

Dozens of journalists came out of the Palestine hotel, the media base during the war, to talk to the marines. The hotel on the roundabout was the target of US tank fire on Tuesday in which two journalists were killed and several injured.

The hatches of the tanks were open with relaxed and smiling crew members exposed, but other marines on foot patrolled the street, and some of them, armed with automatic weapons, entered the hotel.

The collapse of the regime, at least in central Baghdad, was already apparent hours earlier when information ministry "minders" failed to turn up at the hotel as usual in the morning.

Information Minister Mohammed Said Sahhaf, who gave daily upbeat briefings on the progress of the war as seen by the Iraqi regime, was nowhere to be seen.

In other parts of the capital, the arrival of US soldiers was greeted with jubilation on the streets and widespread looting of government facilities. Iraqis were seen pounding Saddam portraits with shoes, a huge insult in the Arab world.

On the central Al-Fardus (Paradise) Square, after initial hesitation, dozens of Iraqis gathered around the giant bronze statue of Saddam. Youths greeted the marines, taking off and waving their T-shirts.

They they turned their attention to the Saddam statue, tearing down a commemorative metal plaque, putting up a ladder to throw a thick rope over the top, and hammering at the base with a sledgehammer.

In scenes reminiscent of the fall of the Berlin Wall, the men took turns at smashing at the base.

The huge junction has 37 columns surrounding the statue of the Iraqi president with his hand raised pointing towards Jerusalem. The columns mark the year of Saddam's birth in 1937, each one bearing the initials SH.

The symbolic moment came just four days after US forces made their first foray into the Iraqi capital following a charge up from the southern border with Kuwait with the aim of ousting Saddam.

They encircled the city Sunday, before making a raid Monday to take over Saddam's main presidential palace. They moved in from different directions Tuesday and Wednesday despite fierce but uncoordinated resistance from Iraqi militiamen.

SPACE.WIRE