By RICH SHUMATE
The CNN Wire/April 2003

BAGHDAD (CNN) — Nearly a quarter century of iron-fisted rule by Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein crumbled dramatically Wednesday, sending jubilant Iraqis into the streets of Baghdad just three weeks after the U.S.-led coalition launched Operation Iraqi Freedom.

However, the security vacuum also led to widespread looting, particularly of government offices. The streets had reportedly quieted down by nightfall, as fearful residents ducked back into their homes. U.S. Marines were patrolling darkened streets in the capital, where the electricity was still off in many areas.

Meanwhile, along the burgeoning northern front, coalition aircraft launched their heaviest wave of bombing yet early Thursday morning, reported CNN Correspondent Brent Sadler, located about 18 miles from the front lines near Kalar.

The bombing runs are designed to soften up Iraqi lines, and local Kurdish commanders told Sadler they expect to gain significant ground later in the day as the result of the strikes.

Kurdish Peshmerga fighters are working alongside U.S. Special Forces in the area, which is about 100 miles east of Saddam Hussein’s hometown of Tikrit near the Iranian border.

In Baghdad, the moment of highest drama Wednesday came when U.S. Marines helped Iraqi civilians topple a massive statute of Saddam Hussein in Firdos Square, in the heart of the Iraqi capital. The Iraqis then danced on the dethroned image and dismembered it.

As the head of the statute was dragged through the streets, people spat on it and beat it with their shoes — considered a grave insult in the Arab world. Civilians chatted amiably with Marines and climbed on board the tank towing vehicle used to pull the symbolic Saddam Hussein from his pedestal.

While tying a rope and chain to the statute to bring it down, one of the Marines briefly covered Saddam Husseins face with the Stars and Stripes, then replaced the U.S. flag with an Iraqi flag.

“The game is over,” conceded Mohammed Aldouri, the Iraqi regime’s ambassador to the United Nations in New York. “I hope that peace will prevail.”

Other senior Iraqi officials were nowhere to be seen. Journalists in the city reported that they didn’t show up for work Wednesday, and reporters were free to move about Baghdad without the “minders” from the Information Ministry who normally shadowed their every move.

Among those officials not seen Wednesday was Information Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf, who had been confidently predicting a coalition defeat in recent days, even as U.S. troops were moving through the city.

Marines also entered the home of Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz, finding evidence that he had left only recently — with blankets draped over the furniture, as if he planned to return. Aziz, one of the Iraqi leader’s longest-serving and most loyal aides, has been the primary face of the regime on the international stage.

As for Saddam Hussein himself, coalition officials said it was still unclear whether he was dead or alive. On Monday, acting on a tip, a U.S. bomber destroyed a building where he was believed to have been, but whether he died in that attack is unknown.

Ahmad Chalabi, leader of the Iraqi National Congress, an opposition group, said he had received unconfirmed reports that Saddam Hussein and at least one of his sons had escaped to Baquba, a town northeast of the capital.