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Saddam Toppled In Baghdad
CBS News
(CBS) As jubilant crowds danced and cheered in the streets of Baghdad, U.S.-led forces were taking over the Iraqi capital and removing Saddam Hussein's regime "from its seat of power," Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld declared Wednesday.
"Saddam Hussein is now taking his rightful place alongside Hitler, Stalin, Lenin, Ceausescu in the pantheon of failed brutal dictators and the Iraqi people are well on their way to freedom," Rumsfeld told a Pentagon briefing.
"This is a very good day," Rumsfeld said as U.S. forces stormed through the streets of the Iraqi capital and were greeted by jubilant Baghdad residents.
But fighting continued in parts of the city and Saddam's whereabouts remained uncertain.
In a square in central Baghdad, U.S. Marines helped a crowd of
Iraqis topple a giant statue of Saddam in a bold symbolic gesture.
CBS News Analyst Col. (Ret.) Mitch Mitchell called the event a "psychological victory."
"Bringing it down is symbolic of the fall of the regime — that the regime no longer is in control of the country," says Mitchell. "It is a great psychological victory to topple the statue of Saddam that was erected to himself in 2001."
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A Kurdish fighter holds a placard reading 'Bush and Blair, the champions of peace' on Thursday April 10, 2003. (AP photo)
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