"There are difficulties ahead, the first difficulty is in effect to complete the war," Robert Hill said the morning after US troops swept through central Baghdad amid popular celebration at the fall of Saddam Hussein.

"There is still sporadic fighting within Baghdad, parts of the government sector of Baghdad haven't yet been taken on the ground, there's still fighting around Tikrit," he said, referring to the main city in Saddam's home region in northern Iraq.

Prime Minister John Howard meanwhile called a meeting of his National Security Committee for Thursday to discuss Iraq, where 2,000 Australian troops have been fighting alongside some 300,000 American and British soldiers.

Canberra has also sent six experts to participate in US-led efforts to rebuild Iraq, but Howard has said Australia will not play a major post-war role in the country.

Australian Iraqis also hailed the downfall of Saddam's regime, but hoped for a quick end to the foreign military presence in their home country.

"It's a great relief that Iraqi people hopefully are gaining their freedom and that the brutal regime that destroyed everything in Iraq, morally and economically and politically, is coming to an end," said Kassim Abood, head of the Iraqi Migrants Council of Australia.

Abood warned that Iraqis would not tolerate the Americans, British or Australians overstaying their welcome.

"I think they should leave Iraq as soon as possible and give the United Nations an opportunity to run Iraq till an interim Iraqi government is elected by the Iraqi people," he said.

"As Americans have been saying, they are coming as liberators not invaders and hopefully they will not be occupiers. Otherwise I think we're going to have another battle on our hands," he said.

SPACE.WIRE