“It was a long process to publish books like these in Iraq,” he said. “First you had to get hold of a banned edition, then photocopy it, cut it, bind it and finally design the cover. That is the bit I enjoyed most. I am rather pleased with how they turned out.”

The comparisons with the Soviet dissident movement are striking. Copies of books by Kanan Makiya, who first exposed Saddam Hussein’s tyranny in Republic of Fear, could be found on many stalls, just as Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s works were secretly circulated more than a decade ago in Russia. In Iraq’s dictatorship, however, the list of banned texts also included religious works, anything by communist writers and by real or supposed opponents of the regime.

At £5 each, the books could cost seller and buyer far more if they were caught by the authorities, who deployed a special department of the secret police to destroy the underground press. One samizdat publisher was arrested and sent to prison for two years after he was found with banned publications, which included encyclopaedias and foreign news magazines. Others involved in spreading seditious material risked having their tongues cut out.

Yesterday that fear had lifted. In my week of speaking to scores of Baghdadis around the capital, nowhere has there been such unanimous support for the overthrow of the regime than among book buyers and sellers.

They regard themselves as the city’s intellectual elite and argue that they probably suffered worst during the 30 years of Baathist rule.

“Many journalists used to come down here during the days of Saddam and ask me questions about how I felt,” Mohammad Ali, a doctor and avid book reader, said. “I do not like lying so I would refuse to answer. There would always be an intelligence officer standing by to make sure you gave the right response.

“Now I would like to say, we are all happy with the liberation. It is like the end of a black nightmare.”

However, as one enters the main street market, where everything formerly banned is now clogging the grimy pavements, the unprecedented freedoms being enjoyed in Baghdad also expose the darker side of human nature.

On one street a young gay man was being jeered and baited by a crowd of men and boys who tormented him in a scene of medieval cruelty. Elsewhere, a brisk trade was under way in homemade “snuff movies”, showing Saddam and members of his regime involved in the gassing of Kurds in the 1980s and the suppression of Shia Muslims in the 1990s. Beside them hawkers sold everything from pistol ammunition, satellite television dishes and even a brown felt hat given to me as a present and purporting to have once belonged to Uday Hussein,Saddam’s sadistic son. For the first time in living memory gambling has returned to Baghdad’s streets, with men eagerly parting with thousands of dinars on a primitive version of roulette called damballa.

“Before, many things were illegal in Baghdad; now nothing is forbidden,” said Hussein, a bored-looking army deserter who was selling stacks of pornographic CDs which he assured customers contained scenes involving “American and British girls”.

“That is good for my business, but also good for the thieves who attack the market and steal our money. They should let me do my business but stop the outlaws,” he said.

Moments later a US Army foot patrol waded through the crowds to try to restore a sense of security. But two watchsellers, peddling wristwatches with pictures of Saddam on the face, said that the thieves would return as soon as the Americans moved on.

The US-led military authority said that re-establishing security was their main priority and tomorrow they would appeal for all Iraqi policemen, apart from the secret police, to report back for duty. Although they will be stripped of their former powers, it is hoped that they will be able to bring some order back on the streets.

“There will be bumps on the road, but we will get there in the end,” Tim Cross, a former British Army major-general and now the deputy head of the civil administration in Iraq, said.

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