Ricciardone: Saddam now reduced to being mayor of Baghdad

US Ambassador Francis Ricciardone said yesterday Iraq President Saddam Hussein’s control over the war-torn country has diminished and is now limited to the capital of Baghdad.

"Saddam Hussein has been reduced pretty much to the mayor of Baghdad at this stage of the game even if he is alive. We do not know if he is gonna be celebrating his birthday at the end of the month," Ricciardone said in a interview over local radio station dzMM.

Despite mounting criticism of the US-led war in Iraq, Ricciardone said he is certain that American objectives in the war will be achieved even if it takes more than a month to accomplish.

US and coalition forces, he said, have made significant progress in less than two weeks such as securing oil fields in southern Iraq and three Iraqi refineries.

"We (coalition forces) are on the outskirts of Baghdad. Slowly, the cities of Nasariyah and Basra are becoming liberated. People (locals) are starting to get some confidence they are not going to be hung or shot for waving to passing American troops," he said.

Asked what would he say about the dictator if he were an Iraqi, Ricciardone said "it won’t take you very long to think about an answer. You’re going to say, ‘Hail, Hitler. I will support Saddam Hussein with my life and with my blood, and with my daughters and with my sons.’"

The ambassador stressed that the coalition is dealing with a dictator who controls his people with fear.

But since the US-led war to disarm and oust the Iraqi dictator began, Ricciardone sees some good things about the war.

"I think you are going to see a country that is on the road of transformation. And this will be as big a transformation of that county and perhaps with results in the region as other big wars transformed the world, say even World War II that transformed the world," he said.