Iraqis who had spent their lives under the brooding shadow of Saddam Hussein--afraid that even a whisper to the wrong person could land them in prison or worse - suddenly were not only talking, they were shouting.

``Victory!'' yelled a man in a long white shirt, as if he had won a war. And perhaps he had.

Now, the people of Baghdad could state openly what frequent visitors to Iraq had always assumed - that they detested the regime, that they were forced to lie and that they felt that they had wasted their lives because of the meglomaniacal whims of Saddam Hussein.

Ayad William, 30, a Christian who works at the Hotel Petra, said ``people are very happy that Saddam is gone.'' Reminded that a few weeks earlier people in this same neighborhood had been chanting ``Yes, Yes Saddam,'' a pained look crossed his face.

``It was dangerous, it was impossible, to say down with Saddam. But we have lived 35 years with the Baath Party. Today I am very free and I can talk. And I say, `Thank you, Mr. Bush.' ''

Those were words I had never expected to hear in Baghdad. So for me too, Wednesday was a day of awe.

When I returned to Iraq on assignment in late January, my first time back in almost five years, the first thing I felt was dread. It was always the same coming to Bagdad, the sense of voluntarily putting myself in the clutches of a police state. Cross the border from Jordan, and feel the penitentiary doors close behind you.

Western reporters here have always tried to get access to people in private to hear their stories, but almost every conversation was monitored. Government-assigned minders, drivers, hotel staff and security agents were all required to report daily on reporters' activities. Even if you somehow eluded such supervision, Iraqis in private were almost always too intimidated to speak with candor.

The government charged for these minders. In fact, the director general of the information ministry had threatened to shut down the foreign television networks Tuesday night unless they paid up so-called service fees. He collected $200,000 in cash and disappeared.

This historic day began with a phone call to my room from my Iraqi minder, who for the last three weeks had been both translator and enforcer of government restrictions on my movements. He was also more honest and less corrupt than most, and I had come to see him as a friend.

Can I come up? he asked. He told me that during the night all the police and armed militias had disappeared from the city streets. Looting had begun in Saddam City, the sprawling slum inhabited mainly by Shiites. He was worried about impending anarchy.

The press center directors were all gone, he said. What about Information Minister Mohammed Said Sahaf, our putative host? He only laughed.

In the lobby of the Palestine Hotel, headquarters for the international press corps, the journalists scurried around madly. Some had been on the streets on their own for the first time. They had found law and order broken down. Mobs had confronted them and stolen their cameras. The Canal Hotel, the U.N. headquarters in the northeastern part of the city, was being stripped of equipment and vehicles.

I walked outside. The city was much quieter than in recent days. There was no shooting nearby. No bombs. The air was even clearer.

I hired a taxi. Sensibly, the driver declined to go to Saddam City. Instead he dropped me in the predominantly Christian neighbohood of Karada.

Several other journalists and I encountered a column of U.S. Marines. The troops had their weapons pointed in our direction as we walked toward them down an empty street. The tension eased after we were able to make clear to them who were were. The Marines, under the command of Lt. Col. Bryan McCoy of Twenty-Nine Palms, said they had intended to move into the city to probe for resistance. However, there was none. So they just kept rolling.

Their tanks and armored vehicles stretched as far as the eye could see. Their treads chewed up the pavement. The air was filled with diesel fumes and the clanking sounds of American power on the move.

The neighborhood of three and four story buildings was almost deserted. A few men and women appeared at windows and balconies waving white hankerchiefs. Then some children and adults timidly ventured into the street, wide-eyed at the sight of the heavily armed Americans. When it became clear that the Marines meant no harm, more and more people came out. They began shaking hands and embracing the Marines.

A 50-year-old doctor, Faisal Mohammed, asked me to relay to the Marine in front of his house that the people in Karada wanted protection. ``They should stop the Ali-Babas from looting everything in town before it is too late.'' But the Marine, Lance Cpl. Joshua M. Smith of Des Moines, Iowa, said he had to keep moving. The looting was in some ways understandable, he said. ``These people had to do without so many necessary things for so long under Saddam.''

Some residents obviously were trying to curry favor. One man pulled down a Saddam poster, looking at the Marines much as a child trying to please a mother. It was reminiscent of a trait well ingrained in Saddam Hussein's Iraq: let's do and say what we think they want to hear.

Not everyone was thrilled at the turn of events. At a tobacco shop that was being quickly cleared by its owners before looters arrived, a man who gave his name only as Laith said .`we don't like the disorder.And my house has been damaged in the bombings. America is just coming to take the petrol.''

But a companion said that ``Iraqis want to be free.'' If the Americans come as occupiers, that is wrong, he said. ``But if they let us live independently, that is all we want - to live in peace and be a normal country.''

A dentist from the neighborhood offered cold water to the Marines, who politely declined. ``Nobody loved Saddam,'' said the dentist. ``All were afraid because he is a criminal. We were the richest country in the Arab world, now we are poor. He led us into disastrous wars. We lost everything we had.''

I asked to quote him by name, but he declined. ``I'm still very afraid,'' he explained.

Then he made a V-sign and waved it at the nearest Marine amphibious vehicle. ``Victory! Bush!'' he shouted, and was rewarded with a thumbs up sign from the Marines on top.

``Seeing all this makes me feel good, seeing their faces,'' said Lance Cpl. Mark Plummer Jr., of Tulsa, Okla. ``I don't think I'd trade this experience for the world.''

The Marine column got orders from McCoy to move, all the way to the Palestine Hotel. I grabbed a taxi with some other journalists. The driver tried to pass the slow-moving armored vehicles. The Marines shouted at him to pull over but he could not understand. He panicked and started to drive faster.

We screamed at him in Arabic to stop. The Marines drew a bead on us. One passenger waved a white scarf from the window and said ``We are journalists.''

The driver finally stopped and the Marines didn't shoot. I decided to get out and walk, following the column.

I passed a group of women watching the troops and frowning. They said they were supporters of Saddam and complained that the Iraqi army gave up too easily. ``The Iraqi army is very strong and they know about military things,'' said one woman, Novat Farid, a 40-year-old ethnic Armenian. ``And anyone who knows Iraq knows the Iraqis are very brave.'' She said she suspected treachery.

As she spoke, it became clear that they, as Christians, were terrified that they would be victimized by the country's majority Shiite Muslims, especially the residents of Saddam City. ``Maybe there will be war between ourselves,'' said a woman who gave her name only as Mey. Asked why she thought so, she answered, ``Because it is beginning now.''

I trudged on, following as the column reached Firdos Square. The tanks and personnel carriers parked in the street around the square's 40-foot tall metal statue of Saddam. Before long, a crowd of several hundred people drifted in and the afternoon assumed the feeling of a block party. There were people from apartment buildings on one side of the square, Iraqis who had moved into the nearby Palestine and Sheraton hotels as a sanctuary - feeling it would not be bombed because there were journalists there. And the journalists themselves.

My Iraqi friend and former minder found me in the square as the Marines moved in to help knock the statue down.

The winch began to pull, but at first the statue did not move.

``Even now he does not want to leave his seat,'' said my friend.

But finally it began to fall, until Saddam was parallel to the ground - his regally raised hand now pointing to the ground.

``He is pointing to his grave,'' my friend said.

The crowd roared, and as the statue made its final tumble, surged forward to stomp on the fallen symbol.

At a nearby teahouse, a carpenter named Hisam Mohammed sat playing dominoes. ``If you had asked me a week ago, I would say that I would fight to the last drop of my blood, and I would not be lying,'' he said. ``But now, I can say I can live without Saddam.'' His friends guffawed.

But on the other hand, a businessman, Jarrir Abdel-Kerim, 31, said Americans should not be deceived by the scene of the statue toppling.

``After some time there will be a guerrilla war against them,'' he predicted. A lot of people are angry at America. ... Look how many people they killed. Today I saw some people breaking this monument, but there were people - men and women - who stood there and said in Arabic: Screw America, screw Bush. So all this is not a simple situation.''

My friend, who is still afraid to be quoted by name, conceded that Iraq had been humiliated. ``On the other side it is a salvation,'' he said, ``because I can say it freely. I can even criticize (the Americans) if I want to, I can even insult them They cannot provide us free food, but they can provide us free speech.

``I cannot describe the feeling to you perhaps because you are already from a free country,'' he said. Then he tried anyway: ``This is the happiest moment in my life.''

Shawn Hicks, of Arizona gets a kiss from an Iraqi man as they celebrate the arrival of the American troops in central Baghdad.