Diplomatic manouevering surrounding the capture of Saddam Hussein has begun with US special envoy Mr James Baker travelling to France this evening in a renewed attempt to convince European countries to forgive Iraqi debt.
France, Germany, Italy, Russia and Britain will be urged by Mr Baker to relent on at least some of Iraq's $120 billion liability. Other countries will also be lobbied in the coming weeks and Mr Baker is expected to indicate that the US could change its policy on contracts for reconstruction work in Iraq.
Meanwhile, news of the capture had elicited a mixed reaction in Arab countries, where relief in the halls of government mingles with mistrust on the streets as some people resent the US humbling of a man many regarded as a defender of Arab and Muslim interests.
In Iraq, there has been much rejoicing at the news since it emerged yesterday but defiant voices are also being raised in demand of immediate self-rule.
"The small Satan has gone and has been replaced by the biggest of all ... America," Sheikh Haidar Musawi, a radical cleric from Iraq's Shi'ite Muslim majority, said.
Dissent was also voiced by clerics in other countries: "Somali people and all Muslims in the world will take revenge on the Americans wherever they are," preacher Sheikh Yusuf Lakdari said in Mogadishu.
In the former leader's Sunni Muslim heartlands, there was also anger and some scattered street demonstrations.
Elsewhere in the Arab world the capture and the manner in which it was celebrated has caused offence.
"No Arab and no Muslim will ever forget these images. They touched something very, very deep," said Moroccan journalist Khalid Jamai.
"It was disgraceful to publish those pictures. It goes against human dignity, to present him like a gorilla."
And Abdel-Aziz al-Rantissi of the Palestinian group Hamas said Washington would "pay a very high price for the mistake".
But European opponents of the war in Iraq like France and Germany were quick to offer congratulations to the US forces but disagreements about rebuilding Iraq soon resurfaced.
Ahead of Mr Baker arrival, France seized the initiative by offering the new Iraqi leadership a debt-relief deal.
But sources in the Paris Club of creditor nations stressed that offer was conditional on Washington returning full sovereignty to Baghdad and on an internationally-approved reconstruction plan.
The US has resisted European pressure for power to be speedily handed over to the United Nations as a transitional move and have angered opponents of the war by cutting them out of reconstruction contracts offered last week.
Russia, one of Iraq's major creditors, has already given a cool reception to Saddam's arrest saying it is "mainly a symbolic event".
Deputy Foreign Minister Mr Yuri Fedotov said the US move on contracts meant "coalition participants ... can hardly count on the support and understanding of other countries."
Agencies