What a strange day. No moreso than for the people of Baghdad, of course, who today have been pulling down the statues of Saddam Hussein throughout their city.

The war isn’t over, of course, but it’s widely accepted that Saddam’s regime has come to an end. The Iraqi ambassador to the UN has said the ‘game’ is over. He’s not heard from Baghdad for several days.

I was never in favour of this war, but when you see how happy the people of Baghdad are, I can’t help but wonder whether I was wrong. The United Nations, so viciously split before the start of outright hostilities will, I hope, grow after this and as a result be stronger than it ever was. If this is the beginning of the end, though, is its demise a fair price to pay for the liberation of the Iraqi people?

Would holding out for agreement, as I’d have wanted, and waiting until France, Germany, Russia and the other opposing nations to agree to military action been nothing more than a cruel sacrifice of further Iraqi lives?

The other question concerns Iraq’s alleged weapons of mass destruction, the impetus that lead to the outbreak of war. Even if the Coalition forces now find that they were wrong, and there were none all along, does that matter in the face of such jubilation from the Iraqi people?

If there are none, are the remnants of the Iraqi regime wishing they’d cooperated more fully with the UN? Are the Iraqi people glad they did not?

It is a day that is full of questions, then, but also a day when an even greater responsibility has been placed upon the shoulders of Britain, America and the other occupying powers - responsibility to reassure those outside of Iraq, as much as those within the country, that their presence is merely fleeting.

Reaction from throughout the Arab world, if the radio is to be believed, is at best wary, at worst hostile. Many see it as a tragedy that Western powers have taken control of an Arab state. ‘When you want to free a prisoner you give him a key, not blow up the whole jail’ said a random pedestrian on the BBC World Service.

Perhaps they cannot see that the joy on the faces of the Iraqi people outweighs an occupation that in the grand scale of history should be, and probably will be, brief. It is maybe the Coalition’s responsibility now to give words a rest and instead let their actions speak for themselves.

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