"The toppling of Saddam," thundered identical headlines in three broadsheet British newspapers emblazoned with photographs of a giant statue of the Iraqi leader in Baghdad being torn down by US troops and jubilant Iraqis.

"Statue of Liberty" said both The Sun newspaper, Britain's biggest selling daily, and its rival Daily Mirror, the paper most vocally opposed to the US- and British-led war.

The triumphant note was echoed across the channel despite deep differences over the US-led war, where France Soir heralded "The end of the dictator" while the right-wing Le Figaro said simply: "Baghdad has fallen."

But the focus was also on who would be responsible for rebuilding Iraq, with widespread looting also raising fears of lawlessness that could hamper delivery of humanitarian aid.

And against a backdrop of the deeply symbolic photographs of the toppled statue, Europe's press pondered the fate of Saddam himself after 24 years of iron rule.

Drawing parallels with their own past, Germany's newspapers hailed the collapse of the regime, but warned that there was a long road ahead to rebuild the country after Saddam's rule and 13 years of sanctions.

Pictures of Iraqis furiously hacking at Saddam's towering statue revived memories of East Germans pickaxing the Berlin Wall in 1989 as the communist regimes of eastern Europe crumbled one after another.

"The fall of a despicable dictator is a cause for joy for every democrat," wrote the centre-left Tagesspiegel daily.

Germany's mass-selling Bild said the image of cheering Iraqis was at last fulfilling the hopes of the US-led forces.

"The regime is collapsing, the chains of dictatorship are being broken. The statues of Saddam are tumbling, as those of Hitler, Stalin, Mao and Milosevic did before them."

But the conservative Frankfurter Allgemeine said: "When the smoke of war has dissipated, conflicts will emerge again between Shiites and Sunnis, Kurds and Arabs. There is much work for the experienced European constructors of civilian societies.

The message was similar in Russia.

US President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair "can celebrate, they have kept their word and won the war, overthrowing a bloody regime" while avoiding a bloodbath, the centrist Izvestia wrote. "But the hardest and the most dangerous part is only now beginning."

"Will the allies bring peace to the conquered country? Will they install a real government, and not just a handful of puppets? Will they prevent a civil war, prevent the growth of radical Islam, avoid an arbitrary terrorist reaction?"

"The victory and its challenges," was the headline over an editorial by the director of Italy's La Repubblica, Ezio Mauro, describing the war as a "dangerous error" as it was launched without UN backing.

"With the war won, Bush and Blair must now hand over to the United Nations and a European political platform to render Iraq truly democratic and autonomous after freeing it from the dictator," Mauro wrote.

Sweden's Conservative daily Svenska Dagbladet stressed that most important was that Saddam be found "dead or alive".

"It is important in order to have an end to the war and to win the peace," it wrote in an editorial under the headline "The curse is broken in Iraq."

Denmark's press also warned that winning the peace would not be easy.

"Liberated, but for what future?" asked Denmark's independent newspaper Information. "The world has lost a despot but gained a dangerous new world order."

But as the focus of world attention turned to the rebuilding of Iraq, Portugal's Publico newspaper declared: "There are only two countries which have the moral authority and the forces needed to lead the process (of establishing a new government -- Britain and the United States."

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SPACE.WIRE