It is not difficult to find a statue of Saddam Hussein in Tikrit, the town of a thousand Saddams. There is the equestrian statue of Saddam - sword in hand - in Tikrit's main square. Then there are numerous other Saddams - in linen suits, military uniforms, and wearing Arab headdresses.
Outside Tikrit's football stadium there is even a mural of a paternal Saddam,with his arm round his elder son Uday.

As you drive into town there is Saddam again - this time liberating Jerusalem from the back of a white horse. Yesterday, however, the man himself was nowhere to be seen, as American troops drove nonchalantly into his hometown, encountering little resistance.

Just before dawn US light armoured vehicles that had raced up from Baghdad arrived at Tikrit's main bridge. On the other side Kurdish forces advanced through the town's eastern suburbs. Three Cobra helicopter gunships circled above the shimmering blue Tigris river, against the majestic backdrop of Saddam's presidential guesthouse.

It was a moment of sheer Hollywood, with more than a hint of Apocalypse Now. It took a while before anybody noticed that the war in Iraq had just ended.

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"We love Saddam Hussein here. He was the only Arab leader who had the guts to stand up to Israel. He hit Israel with 39 rockets.

"The other Arab countries didn't support him.I don't think Saddam has behaved badly towards his own people. He is a brave man."

Seemingly oblivious to what had just happened, he added: "Nobody can defeat him."
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"Why shouldn't we like Saddam?" Rassan Hassan, 38, asked, as he wheeled his bike past a group of US marines. "Saddam didn't hit us with aeroplanes. He didn't kill our children with bombs. He didn't shut down our schools."
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Other Tikrit residents admitted that they had never liked Saddam very much but had been too scared to complain. "We were compelled to love Saddam Hussein," Abdul Karim, a 34-year-old Arab, said as a group of young men played football in a park across Tikrit's main boulevard, oblivious to the US warplanes flying overhead.

"He has done many bad things over the past 35 years. The worst thing is that we don't have any money," Mr Karim said. "People think that Tikrit is some kind of paradise. In fact everybody is poor."

A short drive south of Tikrit is Owja, the small village where Saddam Hussein was born on April 28 1937, almost 66 years ago.

Nobody in Tikrit was yesterday able to shed much light on where Iraq's president is likely to celebrate his birthday in two weeks' time.

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