The regime of the Iraqi president collapsed under a blistering three-week war by US-led forces.

As they digested the news on TV sets, the exiles kissed the sidewalks, old men threw candy in the air and groups of women chanted the praises of US President George W. Bush.

The celebrations went on for hours as news of the fall of Baghdad came in. It burgeoned into a festive outdoor party in front of a popular Shiite mosque in a street blocked off for the occasion by police, who estimated the crowd at about 1,000.

"Everybody is happy today," said Ali Il-Sayad, 39, an airport supervisor who moved to Dearborn 13 years ago after his father was killed by Saddam's regime.

"We've been up all night watching TV, but we're not tired. We're too excited to sleep," said Il-Sayad, who brought his twin seven-year-old daughters to the parade.

Each girl clutched an American flag and grinned. "I wanted them to see this historic day. This is the day of our freedom," said their father.

"I'll see you in Basra, God willing," a man shouted to Assad Al-Waily, 50, a Dearborn resident who said he plans to return home to the southeastern Iraqi city as soon as the fighting ends.

"When I go home, I'm going to see my whole country," he said. "Before this day, I didn't have freedom. After this day, I am free."

Arabs from throughout the Middle East, but especially from Iraq, have been migrating to Dearborn since the 1970s, encouraging generation upon generation to follow.

Today, Dearborn claims to have the largest Iraqi diaspora in the world, an estimated 30,000.

At first relegated to assembly line work at Ford and other car factories, they have branched out into white collar jobs, and entrepreneurship in service stations, convenience stores and restaurants.

One car in the parade was adorned with a poster of Saddam, skulls and blood pouring from his mouth. Young men grabbed the poster, threw it to the ground and stomped it to shreds.

Revelers spilled into side streets and out of coffee shops and parents took kids out of school to join the party.

"We thank you Mr. Bush. We thank you America," a group of women in long black robes and covered hair chanted in Arabic on a street corner.

Many told stories of sons, brothers, fathers and husbands killed by the Saddam regime in the uprising of Shiite Muslims in southern Iraq after the 1991 war.

"I feel sorry because my son's not alive for this day," said Batul Al-Khafaji, her eyes filling with tears as she recalled the day her 18-year-old son, Hussein, was killed while fighting Saddam.

After that, she and her husband brought their surviving children to Dearborn to start over.

There was little talk in Dearborn of the political structure of a post-war Iraq or a Saddam Hussein replacement.

"He's alive, he's dead, it doesn't matter," said Sindes Mahbuva, standing outside the Karbalaa Islamic Center waiting for her husband. "He is gone, and that's all that matters. He is gone, and Iraqis are free."

SPACE.WIRE