"They got it down!" he said, according to spokesman Ari Fleischer, as he watched television images of US Marines using an armored tank recovery vehicle to tear the once-imposing bronze figure from its pedestal.

But while Saddam's rule over Iraq seemed to have collapsed as fully as the monument in Paradise Square, the White House carefully contained most outward signs of exuberance behind cautious admonitions that "the war is not over."

Vice President Dick Cheney touted the scenes of celebration throughout Iraq as "evidence of the collapse of any central regime authority" and vindication for the US war plan, but warned "hard fighting" may yet lie ahead.

Television images of joyous Iraqis mobbing US soldiers and brandishing US flags are historic and "heartening signs of military progress and mankind's taste for freedom," said Fleischer.

But "we are still in the midst of a shooting war, and men and women are still in harm's way. The war is not over. There remain a lot of dangers ahead," the spokesman said as gunfire could be heard on broadcasts from Baghdad.

Bush kept to a schedule that called for him to stay out of sight, and was careful not to declare victory in separate closed-door meetings with lawmakers and Slovak President Rudolf Schuster, participants and aides said.

Schuster, whose nation is a member of the "coalition of the willing" that backs the war, said he has offered Slovak help with post-war Iraq in the form of equipment to remove land mines.

Before meeting with his guest, Bush watched television footage of Iraqis trying to bring down the statue, and by the time he tuned back in, the crowd was hammering away at it with their shoes and fists.

"Given the chance to be free, the Iraqi people are taking it," said Fleischer.

Still, "this remains an time of utmost caution," he said, because other cities in Iraq remain under the control of Saddam's regime and US-led forces still face pockets of tough resistance.

The subdued tone of the White House stood in stark contrast to the jubilation shown on television as Iraqis assailed statues and portraits of Saddam and other symbols of his iron-fisted rule three weeks to the day after Bush gave US-led forces the order to go to war.

"As much as the president is pleased to see the progress of the military campaign, and the Iraqi people finding freedom where they are finding it, he remains very cautious because he knows that there is grave danger that could still lie ahead," said Fleischer.

The US justification for invading Iraq has edged away from stripping Saddam of weapons of mass destruction and towards ending his iron-fisted rule, though Fleischer said catching or killing him was not paramount.

"It lends clarity to matters, but it alone will not determine the success of the campaign," he said.

"Total victory means total freedom for the Iraqi people everywhere in Iraq; not just in some cities, not just in certain religious areas ... but everywhere, in all communities for the Iraqi people."

"That also will enable us to make certain that the regime is fully disarmed everywhere, in all their hiding places anywhere," he added.

Cheney, speaking to an audience of newspaper editors in New Orleans, refused to predict how long the fighting will last in Iraq.

Last week, Fleischer had said that Bush's "definition of victory" was the point at which the regime is disarmed and its hold on power is broken "so the Iraqi people can be free and liberated."

SPACE.WIRE