A burly 39-year-old man named Qifa, assigned by Mr. Hussein's Information Ministry to keep watch on an American reporter, paused at midmorning, outside the inferno that had become the headquarters of Iraq's National Olympic Committee, to ask the reporter to take a grip of his hand.

The Olympic Committee building, on an expressway on Baghdad's eastern outskirts, has been one of the most widely feared places in Iraq, used by Mr. Hussein's older son, Uday, to torture and kill opponents of the regime and even sportsmen who failed to meet the younger Mr. Hussein's standards. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of Iraqis are said to have died in the building's basements.

"Touch me, touch me, tell me that this is real, tell me that the nightmare is really over," the man said, tears running down his face. John Burns