Iraqis Celebrate News of Bush’s Defeat : Reaction: U.S. election results are seen as a victory for Hussein. Baghdad officials hope for change but expect little immediate impact on trade sanctions.

Salman Hussein said he would have danced in the streets at Baghdad’s Al Awi bus and taxi station just after dawn on Wednesday, if only he could find spare parts for his artificial leg.

Abdul Razaz Raad, a taxi driver with a university degree, said he was so happy that he wanted to slaughter six sheep to feed his entire neighborhood for free in celebration, but he and his family cannot afford to buy even a pound of meat for themselves.

Bus driver Abdul Karim settled on a simple ceremony--he handed out free candy and juice to every passenger on a bus with shattered windshields, broken springs and bald tires.

And their leader, Saddam Hussein--whose war of nerves, words and weapons with President Bush and his allies had become a personal and a national obsession--fired 10 pistol shots in the air, waved in victory to an adoring crowd and offered only a few words of smug recognition.

“Bush has fallen a long time ago. He fell when he decided to bomb Iraq,” Hussein told local tribal leaders on Wednesday in Al Amadi, a town 90 miles west of Baghdad.

So it was in a land impoverished by war and more than two years of international trade sanctions as Iraqis marked the defeat of Bush, the man they blame for bombing their regime and abandoning those who rose up against it during the Gulf War. They also hold Bush personally responsible for the embargo that has isolated Iraq and its 18 million people from the outside world.

In stark contrast, neighboring Kuwait was virtually in mourning at the news of Bush’s defeat. State radio in Kuwait--the nation that Hussein invaded, occupied, ravaged and claimed as Iraq’s own until Bush led a global coalition to liberate it 19 months ago--marked the announcement with dirges and anthems of thanks.

To the north of the still-contested border, a few hundred Iraqis actually did dance in the streets when news of the U.S. election results spread like wildfire just before dawn. The revelation came after a night that most Iraqis spent sleepless, glued to their radios and praying for Bush’s defeat.

Marchers danced to impromptu bands, carried Hussein banners and chanted the words that clearly were the regime’s message of the day: The winner in Tuesday’s U.S. presidential election was not Bill Clinton, but their very own Hussein, who had vowed to destroy Bush for destroying his nation. Hussein had indeed outlasted his nemesis.

Officially, after a daylong meeting of Hussein’s ruling Arab Baath Socialist Party, the regime’s public statement was far more reserved and cautious than many analysts had expected. Hussein did not comment directly on Clinton’s victory. But he observed with a smile in a national broadcast that “Bush didn’t understand Iraq and the Arab nation. The others should comprehend (this) after the experiences which took place. These experiences should be taken as a lesson.”

There were strong indications in the tightly controlled morning newspapers and from government officials in private that Hussein’s regime believes that Bush’s defeat will have little impact on Iraq or the U.N. trade sanctions--essential components in the effort to force Iraqi compliance with a host of cease-fire resolutions.

And yet, through the cautious imagery and measured words, there were signs Wednesday that at least some in the Iraqi government hope that a change in Washington--any change--can only help a nation in despair. “Look, the situation just cannot get any worse,” said one Iraqi intellectual. “Clinton, at least, is a new man. You can deal with him in a new way.”

This almost desperate optimism was deeply reflected on the streets of Baghdad, particularly among those who are the poorest, least educated and hardest hit by the sanctions.

Even the newspaper Al Jumhuriya, the powerful government daily, stressed in a column by prominent Iraqi journalist Ghazi Al Ayash: “We know a lot about George Bush. We know him as a killer of children, as a motivator of war and as the No. 1 criminal. Bill Clinton, though, suffered a lot in his childhood, and this is why Clinton understands the problems of the poor more than anybody else.”

But it was equally clear from interviews that, amid the hope and optimism, Baghdad is unlikely to extend the first olive branch or to offer any more concessions to the U.N. commissions that remain skeptical of whether it has fully disclosed its lethal weapons program and complied with other cease-fire requirements.