With the propaganda apparatus that regularly assured Saddam was alive out of operation, rumors of every variety have emerged about his fate: that he is dead, barricaded in an embassy or already safely in a neighboring country.

It is a situation the United States has faced before.

After the September 11, 2001 attacks, Washington declared Osama bin Laden "wanted dead or alive." But even though US military might smashed Afghanistan's Taliban regime, neither bin Laden nor Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar has been confirmed dead, arguably preventing US forces from declaring full victory.

US tanks swept through Baghdad on Wednesday, meeting little resistance and seeing widespread expressions of joy. With help from US marines, a massive bronze statue of Saddam was toppled in a central Baghdad square.

Nothing has been heard from Saddam since a US B1 bomber flattened a building he was believed to have entered in the Al-Mansur residential district of the capital on Monday. Witnesses said 14 civilians were killed in the raid.

US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said he was unsure whether Saddam survived, but that in any case the Iraqi leader, who turns 66 later this month, was no longer "active."

"He's not been around. He's not active. Therefore, he's dead, or he's incapacitated or he's healthy and he's cowering in some tunnel someplace trying to avoid being caught," Rumsfeld said in Washington.

Earlier, British media quoted intelligence sources as saying the Iraqi president had likely left just before the attack, maintaining his reputation for secrecy and survival built up over decades.

Even some of Saddam's arch-foes believed the president was still alive.

"We have no evidence that they have been killed in that attack," said Ahmad Chalabi, referring to Saddam and his sons Uday and Qussay.

Chalabi, speaking to CNN from Nasiriyah in southern Iraq, said Qussay was known to have survived.

Rumsfeld, without naming Saddam, said senior figures in the regime were headed to Syria, Iraq's long estranged neighbor which had largely mended fences with Baghdad in recent years and has bitterly opposed the war.

"Senior regime people are moving out of Iraq into Syria and Syria is continuing to send things into Iraq. We find it notably unhelpful," Rumsfeld said.

When times are tough, Saddam has also been known to head to his native Tikrit, 170 kilometers (105 miles) north of Baghdad. A US military spokesman said Wednesday the coalition had mounted "continuing airstrikes" on the Tikrit area.

In Beirut, the speaker of the Lebanese parliament, Nabih Berri, said Saddam "could have found refuge" in the Russian embassy in Baghdad.

Moscow flatly denied that speculation.

"This type of claim absolutely does not and cannot correspond with reality," Russian foreign ministry spokesman Alexander Yakovenko said in a statement.

Rumors circulated ahead of the start of the US-led war in Iraq last month that Moscow was helping negotiate a deal with Saddam, offering him exile in Russia if he agreed to step down from power to avert war.

Before Iraqi state television went black earlier this week, it had regularly featured footage of Saddam aimed at showing him alive and in control. On Friday, after US forces captured Baghdad's main airport, the TV showed uncharacteristic footage of Saddam on the street, showered with kisses and chants of support.

Saddam, security paranoid even in better times, is believed by Western intelligence to use doubles. He also had a bunker designed to withstand a blast like the 1945 atomic bombing of Hiroshima, but that palace was raided Monday by US troops.

Wherever Saddam is, publicly at least he has always insisted he will die in the land of his birth.

"I was born here in Iraq," Saddam told CBS News in an interview aired in late February.

"Whoever decides to forsake his nation from whoever requests is not true to the principles. We will die here."

SPACE.WIRE