Bush Declares Hussein Regime ‘No More’

With the major battles in Iraq over, President Bush sounded a triumphal note Tuesday, declaring that “the regime of Saddam Hussein is no more.”

“A month ago ... that country was a prison to its people, a haven for terrorists, an arsenal of weapons that endangered the world,” the president said in a Rose Garden speech. “Today, the world is safer. The terrorists have lost an ally. The Iraqi people are regaining control of their own destiny. These are good days in the history of freedom.”

At the same time, Bush described the victory as “not complete.”

“Centralized power of the dictator has ended. Yet in parts of Iraq, desperate and dangerous elements remain. Forces of our coalition will engage these enemies until they surrender or until they’re destroyed,” Bush said. “We have waged this war with determination and with clarity of purpose. And we will see it through until the job is done.”

The president pledged to help bring stability to the country, restore basic services such as water and electricity, destroy arsenals and establish a “just and representative government.”

“These tasks will take effort, and these tasks will take time. But I have faith in the Iraqi people, and I believe that a free Iraq can be an example of reform and progress to all the Middle East,” Bush said.

The president did not explicitly repeat warnings to Syria that his administration has sounded in recent days, but he pointedly said that the United States will defend itself against all threats.

“When we make a pledge, we mean it,” he said. “We keep our word, and what we begin, we will finish.”

At the Pentagon, Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld said allied troops would return to bypassed towns “to deal with any regime forces that may remain.”

U.S. troops remain active in northern Iraq, but Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, described Kirkuk as calm and Mosul as stable.

In a sign that fewer forces will be used in the remainder of the campaign, orders for the Army’s 1st Cavalry Division to deploy to the Persian Gulf have been revoked, Pentagon officials said. The news followed the recent announcement that the aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk was to leave the region today.

Iraqis who boycott meetings on the future government of Iraq will not be included in the new administration, Rumsfeld said Tuesday. Describing the gatherings arranged by the U.S. Central Command as “big tent” affairs, he said as many people as possible will be included from Iraq’s regional, religious and ethnic groups, including Shiite Muslims, some of whom boycotted Tuesday’s initial summit near Nasiriyah.

“But the fact is, if you do do something, somebody’s not going to like it, and that’s what’s happening,” Rumsfeld said.

He defended war planners against the suggestion that they had done too little to protect a museum of antiquities in Baghdad and other cultural sites from looting.

“It happens, and it’s unfortunate. And to the extent it can be stopped, it should be stopped. To the extent it happens in a war zone, it’s difficult to stop,” he said.

“The United States is concerned about the museum in Baghdad.... But to try to lay off the fact of that unfortunate activity on a defect in a war plan -- it strikes me as a stretch,” Rumsfeld said.

The demise of Hussein’s government has ended patrols of the northern and southern “no-fly” zones that had been enforced for years by the U.S. and Britain to protect Kurds in the north and Shiites in the south from Hussein’s forces. However, planes continue to fly over those areas in combat and surveillance roles, officials said.

Rumsfeld said Pentagon strategists would not decide for months where and how many U.S. troops to station in the region now that the war has eliminated what administration officials had labeled the greatest threat to U.S. interests in the region.

French President Jacques Chirac launched an apparent reconciliation effort by telephoning Bush on Tuesday and pledging his country’s “pragmatic” support in rebuilding Iraq.

It was the first time the two have spoken since Feb. 7, when relations turned icy over U.S. plans to invade Iraq.

The French described the 20-minute phone call as “positive.” The White House called it “businesslike.”

Chirac spokeswoman Catherine Colonna said Chirac told Bush that France intends “to act pragmatically and case by case” in dealing with postwar issues in Iraq, including disarmament, repealing U.N. sanctions, setting up an interim government and reviving the nation’s oil industry.

Chirac also urged a central role for the United Nations, a point of significant disagreement with Bush, who prefers that the world body stay on the sidelines.