ANOTHER LIBERATION STORY:

The occupying forces, from the First and Second brigades of the 101st Airborne Division, entered from the south and north. They had seized the perimeter of town on Tuesday.

People rushed to greet them today, crying out repeatedly, “Thank you, this is beautiful!”

Two questions dominated a crowd that gathered outside a former ammunition center for the Baath Party. “Will you stay?” asked Kase, a civil engineer who would not give his last name. Another man, Heider, said, “Can you tell me what time Saddam is finished?” . .

Then there’s this:

American troops found that the fleeing Baath Party and paramilitary forces had set up minefields on roads and bridges leading out of the city. Late today an American engineering team was clearing the third of such fields, this one with 30 mines, by detonating them with C4 explosives.

Lt. Col. Duke Deluca, noting that the mines had been made in Italy, said, “Europeans are antiwar, but they are pro-commerce.”

Indeed. (Via Daniel Drezner, who’s on a roll.)