"We watched TV all day long. What a relief! This is the end of a nightmare for the 300,000 people who have been living in exile for 10, 20 or sometimes 30 years," said Jabbar Hasan, director of the Iraqi Community Association.

"Everybody agrees on the need to remove Saddam. But there are different views on the means to achieve it and (on) the US deployment in Iraq," said Hasan, a Kurd originally from Baghdad who has lived in London for 28 years.

Speaking the day after the fall of Baghdad to US troops, Hasan said US and British forces should now give Iraq back to the Iraqis.

Coalition soldiers "have done their job. Now they have to leave, and to leave to the Iraqis the responsibility to manage the transition period", he said, adding, however, that his country needed help with reconstruction.

The Iraqi Community Association rents a room in a community centre in Camden Town, north London, where exiles meet regularly to discuss the past of their country, blighted by Saddam's brutal 24-year rule, and its uncertain future.

Shamma, a former engineer who is is now retired, said: "If I invite you to my home as a guest, it doesn't mean that you will come to take my flat and control my family."

His remarks were a reference to Iraqi oil and to plans for a retired US general to run Iraq's post-war interim administration.

Despite the collapse of Saddam's regime, Shamma said he did not want to give his full name in order to protect his family in Iraq.

The authorities "deported me and my family to Iran without money without anything," he added. "They took my home my car and my papers as an engineer."

A clearly agitated man interrupted Shamma. Hassan Ahmed, a Communist, is opposed to the war. He said he wanted Saddam tried in an international court, the Baath party expelled from power, and the Iraqi opposition inside and outside the country to take over.

Ahmed pointed to his missing eye, which he said Saddam "took from him" over 25 years ago, without giving more details.

For Ahmed, meeting his fellow exiles in London is a kind of therapy, although it has its limits.

"The doctor gave me a lot of medicines. He says I should stay calm and relax." But it is impossible not to be depressed and angry "while my family, my country, my memories are destroyed," he said.

Among younger Iraqis interviewed by AFP there were far fewer reservations about the US military presence in their country.

"It has to be" done. "If not, it will be a big mess," said Reda Hamed, 33, who left Iraq aged 13.

"We are the ones who know what is good for our country."

Referring to the fall of Baghdad, Ali Baraka, 34, who works in property management, said: "This is the day of liberation. Iraqis have a feeling of jubilation."

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