BAGHDAD, April 9: Iraq on Sunday marked the third anniversary of the fall of Saddam Hussein’s regime, with hundreds of Shias expressing joy at the ouster of the former dictator while the former Sunni elite denounced the presence of US-led foreign troops in the country.

Shias rallying in the capital took a huge poster of Saddam emblazoned with the words “fall of the tyrant” and trampled on it repeatedly, in memory of the toppling of the former ruler’s statue in a Baghdad square on April 9, 2003. Chanting slogans in favour of embattled Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari, the demonstrators also marked the anniversary of the assassination of top Shia scholar Mohammed Baqr Sadr, slain under Saddam’s regime.

But Sunnis, the once powerful elite under Saddam, denounced the presence of foreign troops in Iraq, which is mired in sectarian violence, anti-US attacks and hostage-takings.

The Iraqi Islamic Party, the principal Sunni faction, said the US-led invasion of Iraq had made the country a “victim of disaster”.

The leading Sunni religious body, the Muslim Scholars Asscociation, also said “the occupation has brought destruction” to Iraq.

When the giant statue of Saddam Hussein came crashing down in Baghdad’s Paradise Square, its iconic fall seemed to herald the end to decades of repression.

Three years after Baghdad fell to US troops, the ousted leader is on trial for war crimes. But fear still grips Iraqis, now trying to survive suicide bombings and violent criminals.

“When I heard the Americans ripped down the statue of Saddam I was happy because I thought we were finished with his stupid wars,” said traffic policeman Ali Jabar, 34.

“But If I knew that I would lose my younger brother to a car bomb, I would have preferred to stay under Saddam’s rule”

Such gloom was never part of Washington’s script for Iraq, when the administration of US President George W. Bush promised to replace a brutal dictatorship with a prosperous democracy that could help transform the Middle East.

Jabar al-Hilfi was one of the few people in the square on Sunday. The 67-year-old municipal worker — who was cutting the grass with a knife — said he barely had the energy to get on with his job let alone reminisce about falling statues.

“What statue do you mean? We have only seen devastation and death since the fall of Saddam. This country is doomed to see agony and sadness. Look at me I can’t even feed my family,” he said.

One man’s destruction brought on by three wars in 25 years and crippling United Nations sanctions has been replaced by the bloody chaos of sectarian violence, a raging insurgency and Al Qaeda terrorists who are tearing the country to pieces.

—Reuters/AFP