"This
is nonsense. Who could capture Saddam?" Haj Abu Daoud, 66,
wondered, asserting he would not believe this story until seeing Saddam
in flesh.
Asked
if the arrest of Saddam would improve the situation on the ground in the
occupied country, he stressed that Iraqis were being occupied by a
foreign country and are suffering unprecedented gas and oil shortage.
"It's
not possible, it must be a double," said taxi-driver Taher,
refusing to believe the eight-month hunt by crack U.S. and Kurdish
militia forces had come up trumps.
The
situation in Saddam’s hometown of Tikrit was also quiet, reported
Agence France-Presse (AFP).
"If
they had announced that he had been caught dead, I might have believed
it," said an incredulous Jahida Mohammad, 45, mother of eight
children.
Tikrit
governor Hussein Jassem Gebara said it was unfortunate that foreign
forces had caught Saddam.
"I
would have liked Iraqi police to get him," said the governor.
In
Fallujah, a flashpoint town where numerous anti-occupation resistance
operations took place, residents said they could not believe the
reports.
Jubilant
However,
hundreds of Iraqis poured unto streets in Baghdad and other cities
across the country and celebrated Saddam’s capture blasting away with
their favorite weapons pointed to the skies and folk dancing in the
streets, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).
In
Baghdad central Fardous Square, people threw old bank notes bearing
Saddam's face into the air.
In
the Shiite holy city of An-Najaf people, took to the streets to dance,
an AFP correspondent said.
A
local television channel urged people to party. Music was being played
across the central Iraqi city.
Street
dancing was also underway in the streets of Kirkuk, led by its governor
Abdul Rahman Mustafa Zangana and his deputy Ismail Ahmad al-Hadidi, who
is also police chief.
U.S.
occupation forces joined in while locals started to slaughter sheep to
fuel the celebrations.
In
Suleimaniya, the northern Kurdish stronghold of Patriotic Union of
Kurdistan leader Jalal Talabani, the population rushed out to prepare
for the great day, an AFP correspondent said.
By
late afternoon, traditional Kurdish dancing filled the city center, 330
kilometers north of the capital.
