LIZ JACKSON, REPORTER: 24 hours after the US troops pulled down the statue of Saddam Hussein, Four Corners headed for Baghdad. Now that Iraqis were free of their brutal dictator, we set off to witness the crucial days that would follow. Would the Iraqis welcome the US and their allies as their liberators or see them as an occupation force? What would be the early signs that after the war the United States could handle the task of delivering stability and peace in Iraq?

What if it's mishandled?

KHALDOUN AL NAQEEB, PROFESSOR OF POLITICAL SCIENCE, KUWAIT UNIVERSITY: (Sighs) Then we are talking about civil war.

LIZ JACKSON: Tonight we take the journey into Baghdad to witness the aftermath of war. The choppers arriving in northern Kuwait have come to collect the reinforcement troops of the 101st Airborne Division of the United States Army. They'll be taking us on the first leg of our journey to Baghdad. The soldiers heading for the capital are feeling both a sense of relief and a sense of vindication. In their camp in the desert, they've been beamed the pictures of Iraqi crowds cheering as the statue of Saddam Hussein was dragged to the ground.

Excuse, do you mind if I just ask you if you feel better about the war since the news yesterday?

SOLDIER: Yes, I do, I do. It looks like things are actually getting better. And it seems like it's turning out less into a war situation and more into a humanitarian situation. I'm real happy to see that. I'm happy most especially to see the Iraqis are accepting the coalition forces. That makes me feel a lot better.

SOLDIER 2: Reminded me of watching statues of, uh...Stalin and Lenin come down, and the Wall come down, and that's what we're here to do.

LIZ JACKSON: You worried about the chaos, the looting and any possible revenge killings? What are you doing about that kind of situation?

SOLDIER 2: Well, that's kind of outside my lane.

LIZ JACKSON: Barely three weeks after the first bombs hit the centre of Baghdad, the bulk of the fighting is over. The US and their allies have swept up through southern Iraq faster than these soldiers can make it to the front. Their only concern is that they will miss the war. As we fly across the Iraqi border, the gunner fires his weapon. Just a test, just in case.

We land about 30 kilometres south of Baghdad, close enough here for the troops to have engaged with the enemy. There's a long column of tanks returning from a day in the capital. The soldiers have just made contact for the first time in the war. One Iraqi bullet hit one of their tanks. They are now combat veterans.

SOLDIER 3: I was up, I was up. We were scanning. And I heard, "TING!" And it skipped off here... (Points to side of tank) ..skipped off and went off that way. Then I... (Mimics firing machine gun) Sorry, I should have known better. I'm a combat veteran! That's what I came here for! Good day, good day. We got contact. That's all we wanted. That's all we've been dreaming of - is contact.

SOLDIER 4: We'll remember it, I guess.

LIZ JACKSON: We're assigned to a unit providing fire support to the front-line troops. This unit has fought their way up from the southern city of Karbala, and to date they've not lost a single man. We stop just past the boundary of Baghdad. Around the field, we stumble across the discarded uniforms of Iraqi soldiers. They clearly took one look at the firepower facing them and ran.

What happens when you open fire?

SOLDIER 5: As far as...?

LIZ JACKSON: What happens to the enemy or what...what...?

SOLDIER 5: Well, we fire 50-pound... Uh, the shell we fire weighs about 50 pounds and it's got a kill radius of about 35 metres, so what... Usually when we fire, we've been firing four to five rounds per gun. We've got a six-gun battery. So, you know, 20 to 30 rounds onto a target, 35-metre kill radius per round. So, uh...I mean, we...we can destroy things pretty quickly.

LIZ JACKSON: That night, we can hear the sounds of battle about six kilometres away and the sky is lit by the blaze from a bomb that has landed in Baghdad. The unit's commanding officer joins us as we watch.

SERGEANT MAJOR MEADOWS: Earlier tonight, what we heard were main guns from our Abram...the Abrams. Uh, did hear a little bit of Bradley out there firing, some .50-cal ammo. I guess they've got into contact with some resistance over there in the town.

LIZ JACKSON: That sort of gunfire at night we heard earlier, that sort of thing you hear most nights keep you awake?

SERGEANT MAJOR MEADOWS: Actually, no. It's, uh... For an old soldier like me, out in training hearing it all the time, it's, uh... I mean, like I said, I don't want to sound morbid, but it's kind of soothing, you know - it's what we're used to. It's our job, this part of it, so it's kind of relaxing.

LIZ JACKSON: The unit is planning to spend another day on the outskirts, so we join what they call the Top Gun Unit, who drive us around the edge of Baghdad. People in their cars wave at the soldiers, but they're still taking no chances. They treat every car as containing a potential suicide bomber.

SOLDIER 6: That's why I get a little nervous when we get in these big crowds. Like I said, it only takes one of them with a stick of dynamite to throw it in one of these vehicles and...phew.

LIZ JACKSON: Most of these folks seem to be waving as you drive past.

SOLDIER 6: You know, we were taught that the thumbs up was a bad thing in Arab. But they seem to be given with smiles. We hope that's a good thing. When we came in yesterday, it didn't seem as friendly then. Now it seems to be picking up a little more. And I think that's because even the people were unsure of what our intentions were.

LIZ JACKSON: In the afternoon, they drop us again on the outskirts, so we take a chance and hail down a local car to take us to the centre of town. A week after the ground assault on Baghdad, buildings are still burning - some from the war, some from a wave of arson that has swept through the city. Most of the major buildings have taken a pounding. The ministries of information and communication were amongst the first to be hit. But the ministries of trade, of education and agriculture, were all struck as well. The remnants of battle are everywhere. The roads are littered with the burnt-out shells of buses and vans and cars. Every burnt-out car raises a question - "What happened here?"

IRAQI MAN (TRANSLATION): This person was going out to replace gas cylinders, and an American tank, without warning, fired at him. He and another person were killed in the car, they were incinerated.

DR MAHMUD AL KISHTAINI, IRAQI BUSINESSMAN: I know three families who have lost six people. One of them, this friend I told you about, another one, uh...who lost two sons in a car and a third family who lost three sons in a car. They were going to fetch medicine for their mother when they were shot. It's war, but, uh...you know, we feel devastated, really, with this state.

LIZ JACKSON: The Americans met little of the expected resistance from Saddam's Special Republican Guard as they moved swiftly into the centre of town. But people did fight. Under Saddam Bridge, that crosses the Tigris River, we came across their bodies. They are still being pulled out of the dirt, five days after what was one of the few bloody stands in Baghdad.

We find a young Iraqi civilian who fought in and survived this battle - a combat veteran from the other side of the war.

IRAQI MAN (TRANSLATION): The weapons they used were not bombs or bullets, They melted humans and cars - cars with people in them melted - even in the side streets near the mosque.

LIZ JACKSON: Jafar Saidi is a taxi driver. He didn't take up the fight because Saddam's Fedayeen had put a gun to his back, but because the imam from his local mosque told him that it was his sacred duty to fight the invaders.

JAFAR SAIDI (TRANSLATION): Everyone who was praying hurried to the place where the army came from, but the weapons we had were useless, except for the Imam who climbed the building and hit the tank from above.

LIZ JACKSON: This American tank was destroyed in the battle at the bridge, one of the few they lost in the war. But the cost of this small victory was high.

JAFAR SAIDI (TRANSLATION): Our resistance ended because civilians were being badly hurt. There was indiscriminate shelling at night, wherever there was resistance, they shelled indiscriminately, so we agreed it was useless to resist because our families would be killed. You hit one tank they kill 50 families in return. You feel so powerless.

LIZ JACKSON: We finally end up at the heavily fortified Palestine Hotel. Nobody gets in without the say-so of the US marines, who have parked their tanks to block off the roadway, and they search every car. The hotel is now the home for most of the foreign journalists covering the war, and for many of the marines who fought it. It's the civil and military operations centre of the US forces. If you're inside the Palestine, you're inside the tent, watching the players or hoping to be one.

The Free Iraqi Forces are conspicuous in their surplus US uniforms. They're the Iraqi exiles trained by the Pentagon in Hungary. Former Ba'athist officials are there, distancing themselves from the old regime.

FORMER BA'ATHIST OFFICIAL (TRANSLATION): Saddam's brother Watban Ibrahim sacked me. I had an argument with him, and he sacked me. I have the papers to prove it.

LIZ JACKSON: Government minders who used to spy on foreign journalists now come here to offer their services as translators.

IRAQI TRANSLATOR: Now we are in freedom, we can talk, we can...I feel very, very, very, very happy.

LIZ JACKSON: Just 50 metres away, it's a different story. This day, as every day we were there, a small hostile crowd has gathered behind the wire, venting their anger at what has happened in their country.

PROTESTORS: Saddam Bush! Saddam Bush!

LIZ JACKSON: Their chanted refrain is that Saddam Hussein and George Bush are the same.

Aren't you pleased that America has got rid of Saddam?

PROTESTOR: George Bush, I don't care about Bush. This is my country, my land, my oil. He doesn't care about Iraq, he cares about oil.

PROTESTOR 2: They're going to replace Saddam with their puppets. These exiles claim they were oppressed, but it's not true, it's the people here who were oppressed. What right do they have to come and rule us?

LIZ JACKSON: At night, from our room at the top of the Sheraton, without power or water, we can see and hear a gunfight down below. Despite the flares, it's hard to make out just what is happening. The marines tell us later they were responding to sniper fire. They cautiously fan out across the square. What we can see is a man who we'd seen earlier working as a security guard in a building below. He's dropping his weapons as the marines approach.

Later, we can just make out another man being arrested, and the marines continue to scour the area for over an hour. We find out in the morning that three Iraqis were arrested, another escaped, and one man was shot and killed.

Wamidh Nadhmi is a professor of political science at Baghdad University. While not a friend of the former regime, he survived it.

How long do you think Americans in Iraq will remain targets?

WAMIDH NADHMI, PROFESSOR OF POLITICAL SCIENCE, BAGHDAD UNIVERSITY: I think, uh...this situation will increase by the coming days and months rather than decrease.

LIZ JACKSON: The, uh...firing at Americans?

WAMIDH NADHMI: Yes.

LIZ JACKSON: The fact that they are targets will get worse?

WAMIDH NADHMI: Yes.

LIZ JACKSON: Not better?

WAMIDH NADHMI: I think it will get worse.

LIZ JACKSON: Six days after the Americans had taken Baghdad, looting is still rampant. Paid employment has collapsed, the shops are closed, and very few people have access to electricity or water. We pull over outside what we discover is one of the many palaces that belonged to Saddam Hussein. One lone marine is struggling to control what is happening.

MARINE: No! Allah say not to steal! The Koran? Koran? Huh?

LOOTER: Yes.

MARINE: Go home!

LIZ JACKSON: People are even stealing the ducks from the pond.

What's been going on here?

MARINE: A f-----g war's going on. (To second marine) Get back in there.

MARINE 2: Where are we going to get water from?

MARINE 1: I don't know. I'll figure out something.

LIZ JACKSON: What's all the green smoke?

MARINE 1: It's just something to get the people out of here. They probably thought it was a grenade, so I threw it. I tossed it so they would move out.

LIZ JACKSON: The looters stop to give us their take on events. Saddam had it all, and they're taking some back.

MAN (TRANSLATION): God bless Bush, yes he brings us medicine. Saddam would send people to shoot us with bullets, and Fedayeen who blow themselves up. Saddam's people are still here, they kill children.

MAN 2: We need medicine, we don't need democracy.

LIZ JACKSON: You need medicine?

MAN 2: Medicine, and water and electricity. We need. Very, very, we need.

MAN 1 (TRANSLATION): We need food for the babies.

MAN 2: And food for the babies. Thank you.

LIZ JACKSON: The situation in the hospitals is dire, and many have been forced to close. Looters have stolen their medicines, and none of the doctors are being paid. Here, they've managed to stay open, and they take us to see the civilians who've been burned in the bombing of Baghdad.

DOCTOR: She's a critical patient. A permanent, poor prognosis. Third-degree burn. Six cases by bomb died.

LIZ JACKSON: The outpatient area is overflowing with people clamouring for help, and there's no more room for the dead in the hospital refrigerators.

So, how many dead bodies have you got that you have nowhere to put?

DR THAAR RASSEM AL DAHERY, AL KARAMA HOSPITAL: Uh...we have a large number.

LIZ JACKSON: Are you talking 10, 20 that you can't...

DR THAAR RASSEM AL DAHERY: More, more, more than.

LIZ JACKSON: More than?

DR THAAR RASSEM AL DAHERY: More than.

LIZ JACKSON: 50? 100?

DR THAAR RASSEM AL DAHERY: Yes. Equally 100, 150, 200. But just to this hospital. And we have many, many hospital in Baghdad.

LIZ JACKSON: And nowhere to put the bodies?

DR THAAR RASSEM AL DAHERY: We have no place.

LIZ JACKSON: So, how do you feel about the Americans as a result of what's happened?

DR THAAR RASSEM AL DAHERY: Leave me this question, please. I don't want... No, not that I am afraid. But I can't...I don't want to say anything about these questions.

LIZ JACKSON: Can you just tell me why you don't want to say anything?

DR THAAR RASSEM AL DAHERY: I have no idea about American, so that I don't know what he want or what he coming for, so that I don't...I can't say anything about him or her...I can't say anything to him or against him.

LIZ JACKSON: When we see the director of the hospital, he's more forthcoming and more cynical.

What makes you say that it's just oil?

DR ABDUL KARIM AL AZZAWI, DIRECTOR, AL KARAMA HOSPITAL: Because I see that. Number one, they have, you know, the big companies for, uh...fire extinguishing - extinguishing the fire in the oils in the south. Second one, when they approached Baghdad, they were immediately guarding the Ministry of Oil, which was on their way, you see, on the east of the river. Third thing, on the west of the river there was a refinery being guarded also, and they done nothing about other public services.

LIZ JACKSON: Like your hospital?

DR ABDUL KARIM AL AZZAWI: Like my hospital.

LIZ JACKSON: On the way back from the hospital, we drive into gunfire and stop. Most of the time in Baghdad, we can hear the odd gunshot in the distance. This is a city in which almost every man is armed. It becomes clear these men are self-styled vigilantes who are attempting to intimidate the looters and take back the goods they have stolen.

MAN: You know, all this, by the American support. It happened by the American support.

LIZ JACKSON: It's unclear in whose interests they are acting, but it's clear who they blame.

MAN 2 (TRANSLATION): Is this freedom for Iraq? Is this freedom? See what America has done to the Iraqi people? They want us to become like Kuwaitis, but we'll never be like that. We are real men.

LIZ JACKSON: A lot of people would think, "Look, looting happens at the end of a war," and that this will all pass, and then in a couple of weeks or maybe a couple of months, the country will settle down.

WAMIDH NADHMI: Yes, but there will be new problems. Who's going to run... to run the country?

LIZ JACKSON: Having dismantled the old regime, there's now a power vacuum to fill. The Americans have invited former Iraqi police officers to turn up here and reapply for their jobs. They've already filled the top command positions on the advice of their favoured group of exiles, the Iraqi National Congress, whom they openly tell us will soon be running the show. The marines are screening all the police, who were all, by necessity, Ba'ath Party members. They're trying to avoid reappointing those who were the thugs, the crooks and the informers - the enforcers for Saddam Hussein.

How do you do the screening? How can you tell who's desirable and who's undesirable?

MARINE: We have...we have resources in place that are able to, uh...to identify those who, uh...may have, uh... been abusive of people in the last...in the last regime.

LIZ JACKSON: When you say 'resources', what do you mean?

MARINE: Well, we have...we have resources. I...I can't get into too much detail on it, but we have...

LIZ JACKSON: What? People who will be looking at other people?

MARINE: We have people and...and information...

LIZ JACKSON: Iraqis?

MARINE: And it's...it's, uh...

LIZ JACKSON: How can you rely on that?

MARINE: Well, again, you can never be 100%. I won't sit here and lie to you, but, uh...we think it's a good baseline to get the best people we can into the mix, and this is just a very temporary measure. Uh...as soon as the Iraqi National Congress is set up and running, they will completely overhaul the police department and they will make the permanent changes to it.

LIZ JACKSON: The Iraqi National Congress will? They've been outside the country. How would they know who's done what?

MARINE: The new Iraqi leadership, I should I say. I don't want to...again, I don't want to spread any misinformation, but the new Iraqi leadership will reform the police department and make the long-term changes and reforms.

LIZ JACKSON: Whether these men, still in the uniform of the previous regime, will be accepted, remains to be seen. There is a deep resentment of the way the Ba'athists controlled every aspect of Iraqi life.

Can I just ask, are you a former member of the Ba'ath Party?

POLICE OFFICER (TRANSLATION): Yes.

LIZ JACKSON: Do you think that's a problem in terms of what's going to happen now with regime change?

POLICE OFFICER (TRANSLATION): Before the change of regime, I left the party.

LIZ JACKSON: How can people believe you as a policeman when they hate the Ba'ath Party?

POLICE OFFICER (TRANSLATION): Just because someone was in the Ba'ath Party, it doesn't mean they can't serve their country.

DR MAHMUD AL KISHTAINI: They hate the Ba'aths simply because they have suffered so much from the regime, but as soon as you change the regime, the Ba'aths are no threat to anybody. Just simply tell the police you are no longer Ba'aths, you are Americans. They will, uh...work the American way. And the Americans are going to use them, I am sure, to, uh...put their feet in Iraq. They're not going to replace them. They are very valuable to the Americans.

LIZ JACKSON: As the new police sign up to restore law and order, a looted building is going up behind us in smoke. The marines in armoured cars roll right past it.

IRAQI MAN (TRANSLATION): The Americans are happy about this, because they can come and rebuild with our oil money... We know that, we're not stupid. With our oil, they will rebuild, burn and rebuild.

LIZ JACKSON: In the late afternoon and into the night, the skyline of Baghdad is lit by the fires of ammunition dumps, blown up by the US forces.

The following day, we headed for the district of Baghdad called Saddam City. It's the poorest area of Baghdad, home to around 2 million people predominantly of the Shiah Muslim faith. It's a virtual no-go area for the US forces. Our driver is a Sunni and he's nervous. We are too. The same day we went, another group of journalists was shot at, and two bullets hit the side of their car.

As we enter, there's a banner that tells us the district has changed its name from Saddam City to Sadr City. The newly painted graffiti is a little more menacing. "Welcome to Sadr City," it says. "Death to all Ba'athists." The Shiah are the majority in Iraq, but it was the Sunni Muslims of the Ba'ath Party who, under Saddam Hussein, kept them in their place - the slums of Baghdad. Any signs of rebellion brought widespread arrests and executions. The renaming of this district as Sadr City is a reference to the Ayatollah Baqir al-Sadr, a Shiah cleric who was executed by Saddam Hussein in 1980. It's also a statement of Shiah control over this big chunk of Baghdad. Their religious power bases are the holy cities of Najaf and Karbala, but here they are placing a roadblock on the US plans for who should govern Iraq.

People have said to me that there are Shiah moving up from Najaf, from Karbala, and that they want a power base here in Baghdad.

WAMIDH NADHMI: Yes.

LIZ JACKSON: For the post regime.

WAMIDH NADHMI: Yes.

LIZ JACKSON: You think this is true?

WAMIDH NADHMI: I think this is, uh...very much is true. Perhaps they are doing it in a hasty way, but I think they are doing it in an obvious way, and I think they are trying to cut the road for the Americans to implement a pro-American government in Baghdad.

LIZ JACKSON: And what is their agenda? What do they want? Do they want a more Islamist country? A less secular country?

WAMIDH NADHMI: Yes. Yes.

LIZ JACKSON: We arrive at a mosque where we've heard that the imam has asked the looters from Sadr City to bring back the goods they have stolen. No-one trusts anyone in Baghdad now and they're body-searching for weapons.

Inside, the loot that has been returned is piled in stacks. Much of it here looks like the booty that nobody really wanted, but each new piece that arrives is entered into the mosque's accounting books for redistribution. We find medicines that were taken from the hospitals stacked up inside the mosque itself. And the clerics and their followers are organising for them to be returned. This is not just charity. They want to make the political point that they can bring order where the US has brought chaos and they can do it without the former Ba'athist police.

SAYED RHAIM AL MOSAWI (TRANSLATION): Although the (US) General said if you don't like them you can change them, we said we would never accept anyone from the old regime. That's not just here but all over Iraq. We will never accept a man from the old regime. We have people who can do these jobs - they are excellent people, committed, and they are believers.

LIZ JACKSON: The clerics also want to make it plain that they and their followers, who number in the millions, will not accept the exile leaders favoured and funded by the United States. Sayed Mosawi singles out the Iraqi National Congress leader Ahmad Chalabi who left Iraq in 1958.

SAYED RHAIM AL MOSAWI (TRANSLATION): The people want a leader who comes from Iraq, an Iraqi who suffered with the Iraqi people, not someone from outside like Ahmad Chalabi and others. There are a lot of questions about them and people don't want them. America, we hope, will consider this, otherwise chaos might follow.

LIZ JACKSON: As we leave the mosque, the residents of Sadr City give us a piece of their mind.

Tell me...tell me what's wrong here in Sadr City?

MAN (TRANSLATION): Nothing is wrong except what the Americans and British have done to our children, our hospitals, our services. We have got nothing, not even our freedom.

LIZ JACKSON: I think a lot of people who watch this and hear from a lot of people we've spoken to today will say, "The Americans have taken Saddam Hussein away. They have removed him from power in Iraq. Why aren't Iraqis more grateful for that? They couldn't do it themselves. He is a brutal dictator, isn't he?"

WAMIDH NADHMI: Well, they...they supported...they supported this brutal dictator during the Iraqi-Iran war and they did not mention a single word about his brutality or weapons of mass destruction. They did not come to Iraq from the Soviet Union. It came from Western countries, including America and Britain. And why should I believe they came to remove a tyrannical regime rather than they came to steal our oil revenues and subjugate our people to a new tyrannical rule?

LIZ JACKSON: But whatever the motives, isn't there joy for you in the fact that he's gone?

WAMIDH NADHMI: Not in this way.

LIZ JACKSON: Back on the perimeter of the Palestine Hotel, the American marines have stepped up security. They're now body-searching everyone who approaches the hotel. Arriving in the lobby is the newly self-proclaimed Mayor of Baghdad. He claimed his authority after a meeting organised by the American forces. His press minder, in a suit and tie, takes his questions for him.

Can I ask you a question?

MINDER: Go ahead.

LIZ JACKSON: Do you think you'll be accepted by the people of Baghdad when you've been brought here by the Americans?

MINDER: Yeah.

LIZ JACKSON: Do you think you'll be accepted when you were brought by the Americans?

MINDER: We have been elected by the... by the... We have been elected by the public here.

LIZ JACKSON: Do you feel safe to walk in the streets of Baghdad without a military escort now?

MINDER: We need this presence now.

LIZ JACKSON: What does that say about your acceptance here, if you need to be guarded all the time?

MINDER: We need...we need the protection now and we need the security umbrella.

LIZ JACKSON: Mohammed Zubaidi has lived outside Iraq for the past 24 years. He's a member of the Iraqi National Congress. His impromptu press conference is flooded out by his retinue of clan and family members and bodyguards. One Iraqi journalist mutters darkly in my ear, "He wants to replace Saddam's tribe with his own."

MOHAMMED ZUBAIDI (TRANSLATION): We are working to serve our people. Iraqis have started to taste freedom. After 35 years of dictatorship, there was brainwashing.

LIZ JACKSON: After his grab for power, Mohammed Zubaidi fell out with the Iraqi National Congress. The Americans later arrested him on the charge that he was "exercising authority which was not his".

New political groupings are forming now all around Baghdad. They too are nervous of arrest. We've come to film a meeting of political scientists and academics. They're a secular group who are outraged at the leaders being promoted by the US and their allies. But they don't want us to film.

So, the people...the people inside your house at the moment who are meeting to find alternative representatives for the Iraqi people, they're not happy to be filmed because they're afraid...

WAMIDH NADHMI: Yes.

LIZ JACKSON: That the Americans will...?

WAMIDH NADHMI: Yes, might arrest them. And accuse them of any sort of thing.

LIZ JACKSON: So, if we show their pictures...they think the Americans will what, knock at their door?

WAMIDH NADHMI: Yeah, yes.

LIZ JACKSON: And arrest them?

WAMIDH NADHMI: Yes.

LIZ JACKSON: For being what? Anti-American?

WAMIDH NADHMI: Yes. Anti-occupation.

LIZ JACKSON: Anti-occupation? Because they think they might be associated with people who are doing the sniping or what?

WAMIDH NADHMI: No, no, they have nothing to do with the sniping.

LIZ JACKSON: No, I know they don't.

WAMIDH NADHMI: Most are old people.

LIZ JACKSON: Why are they afraid the Americans will arrest them?

WAMIDH NADHMI: Because the Americans are appointing a very, very low people. One is a pimp in Mosul, one is a thief and one is a war criminal. So, obviously, they are trying to impose a humiliating regime on Iraq. If the patriotic respectable forces show opposition, and in that short time, the Americans might arrest them.

LIZ JACKSON: Might arrest them?

WAMIDH NADHMI: Yes.

LIZ JACKSON: But do you know of anyone who's been arrested for that?

WAMIDH NADHMI: No, I don't, no.

LIZ JACKSON: So what makes them afraid, if no-one's been arrested for opposing? I mean, they're supposed to bring...

WAMIDH NADHMI: They don't have any confidence in the American occupation forces.

LIZ JACKSON: I see. Well, look, I'm sorry to have come to your house.

WAMIDH NADHMI: Thank you. Yes.

LIZ JACKSON: We just hoped to film these people who are trying to build an alternative government.

WAMIDH NADHMI: No, no, no, they disagree.

LIZ JACKSON: Look, thank you, indeed, anyway, for your time, and I should let you go back to your meeting.

WAMIDH NADHMI: Right. Thank you.

LIZ JACKSON: OK. All the best.

WAMIDH NADHMI: All the best. Thank you. I'm sorry, but this is the situation. They unanimously agreed that they would not like to be televised.

LIZ JACKSON: That's their decision. I appreciate that's their decision. Thank you, sir.

WAMIDH NADHMI: That's alright.

LIZ JACKSON: The Iraqi exiles favoured by the United States have nothing but contempt for the anti-American stance of people like Professor Nadhmi. You find them at the Palestine Hotel.

TALIB ZANGANA, FREE IRAQI FORCES: Those scientists, those professors, they should have raised their voice against Saddam Hussein. The whole world knows how good was Saddam Hussein's system. They used to cut the ear and the nose off the people, they burned people, they've raped women. Where were those officers... professors?

LIZ JACKSON: They know that. They know that, and they hate Saddam Hussein.

TALIB ZANGANA: And then what? All of a sudden, Saddam Hussein is better than us, we who came to liberate this country? Is that their...is that their logic? We...at least we gave them the right to come criticise us. Where were they? What right did they have before?

LIZ JACKSON: On our last day in Baghdad, 10,000 Shi'ites exercise their new rights and take to the streets in anti-American protests. Some call for the establishment of an Islamic state. But the major demand is for the US and their allies to leave - now. And if they don't leave soon, what will happen?

SAYED RHAIM AL MOSAWI (TRANSLATION): We are not threatening, nor wanting to jump ahead of events, but if they don't leave, they will face great difficulties, difficulties like they have never experienced in any other country. Certainly, this country of ours is a religious country. If religious leaders say America should leave, America will leave.

LIZ JACKSON: We're leaving Baghdad 10 days after the American marines took the city. We pass some graffiti which describes the Pentagon's favoured Iraqi leader, Ahmad Chalabi, as a dog. It's too early to make a call about what people here will finally feel about what's happening in their country. But the events of these days have shaped the way many Iraqis now judge America's war, including those who once supported it.

DR MAHMUD AL KISHTAINI: Now, after I have seen what has taken place, is it really worth it? Would the people who are going to come instead of Saddam Hussein, be better than him? Those people - the civilians, the innocent, their children - their wealth, their culture that has been destroyed. Who's going to replace it? What for?

LIZ JACKSON: As we leave Iraq, we pull into the last petrol station before the border crossing into Jordan. Now that the war story is over, many of the journalists are pulling out. News from Iraq has already slipped down the bulletins. The longer-term problems and complexities will not play out for months, but the future looks, at best, unstable. With the iron fist of repression gone, in a country bristling with weapons, old and new rivalries and resentments look set to flare. Five families of refugees packed into two vans have made the judgment it's time to go. I'm reminded of what we were told before we left Kuwait.

KHALDOUN AL NAQEEB: It's a question of establishing civil and social peace, and I don't think this particular administration can handle the situation in Iraq.

LIZ JACKSON: What if it's mishandled?

KHALDOUN AL NAQEEB: (Sighs) Then we're talking about civil war. Then we're talking about civil war.