It is one of the abiding images of the US invasion of Iraq.

As American armoured trucks rolled into Firdos Square in downtown Baghdad, one emboldened Iraqi was photographed taking a sledgehammer to a statue of the country’s dictator Saddam Hussein.

Kadhim Sharif al-Jabouri, a mechanic who had worked fixing Saddam’s motorcycles, had run down to the square to be a part of history.

Mr Jabouri, who had seen more than a dozen members of his family executed by the Iraqi leader's brutal regime, was hopeful that a new dawn was coming. He had thought that things would get better after his fall.