After US tanks rumbled on to Al-Fardus (Paradise) Square in late afternoon dozens of Iraqis quickly gathered to watch and warmly welcome the troops.

The crowd soon set about trying to destroy the monument in a symbolic gesture marking the collapse of Saddam's Baath Party regime which has been in power since 1968.

One huge Iraqi took a sledgehammer to the massive marble plinth and after a few mighty blows passed it on to eager men queuing for a go before returning to the task himself.

But a complex operation, it took the marines and a tank recovery vehicle with a crane to secure a chain round the statue's neck and back up to pull it over.

Saddam, his right hand in a gesture of waving farewell, hung on in horizontal position for a few seconds until another tug finally brought him to the ground.

Dozens of Iraqis jumped on the figure shouting with joy.

One marine -- some of whose colleagues were criticised for hoisting the Stars and Stripes in Umm Qasr, early in the war -- had put an American flag over Saddam's face.

But he soon replaced it with an Iraqi flag as a scarf before that too was taken away.

It was the last statue to be erected to Saddam as part of the personality cult that surrounded the "great leader", now believed to have fled into hiding.

Hand outstretched towards Jerusalem, the monument dominated the square where it was inaugurated on April 28 last year, the day of the president's 65th birthday.

The enormous bronze perhaps six metres (20 feet) tall stood atop a plinth of the similar height surrounded by 37 ornate white columns -- he was born in 1937 -- each bearing the initials SH in Arabic.

Youths had already ripped a plaque off the base.

At the Palestine hotel overlooking the square, other men worked at the entrance to bring down a huge portrait of a smiling Saddam in coat and hat, but having failed they finally set it ablaze.

SPACE.WIRE