EDITORIAL LET FREEDOM RING THE FALL OF BAGHDAD AND THE TRIUMPH OF OUR BETTER SELVES.

ALTHOUGH the most inspiring image to come out of Baghdad on Wednesday was the sight of cheering Iraqis toppling and decapitating a statue of Saddam Hussein, a more telling image preceded it: The sight of U.S. Marines scrambling to remove an American flag from the statue's face.

Apparently some overly eager Marines, excusably excited by America's triumph and the apparent collapse of the Hussein regime, rushed to wrap the Stars and Stripes around the copper Saddam's head - much to the chagrin of their superiors.

Allied leaders have tried to make it clear from the very beginning: This was a war of liberation, not conquest.

And so with little delay Old Glory was taken down, and in its place an Iraqi flag shrouded the face of the country's deposed despot, shortly before the Marines helped topple the statue, and jubilant crowds danced on Saddam's head.

The message couldn't have been more clear. America, like any nation, occasionally faces the temptations of egoism and self-glorification, but on this day, altruism would win out.

On this day, the heroic success of the U.S. Armed Forces signaled a call to the world:

Let freedom ring!

The call was heard not just on the streets of Baghdad, but throughout the Arab world where the images of celebrating Iraqis praising their American liberators shattered myths created by years of propaganda.

Let freedom ring!

It's a call that needs to be heard back in the United States, too. Our freedom should never be taken for granted, nor must it ever be abused.

Freedom that tramples over the rights of others is not freedom at all, it's exploitation - Hussein's ``freedom'' to do as he pleased came at the price of bondage for millions of Iraqis.

Likewise, politicians who deceive the public, businesses that gouge customers and shareholders, individuals who lie to and cheat one another are not exercising freedom, they're denying it to others and, in the process, whittling it away.

If there's a lesson for all Americans to learn about Operation Iraqi Freedom, it's that for America's freedoms to flourish, they must be used to defend and promote freedom for all. Our Marines, soldiers, sailors and airmen have showed us as much in the magnanimous way they've freed Iraq.

Let freedom ring!

For months, observers the world over and skeptics here at home worried, some with good reason, about America's intentions in Iraq, about whether this war would promote freedom or erode it.

Would this be a war for oil?

Would American forces slaughter millions of the Iraqi people they ostensibly were coming to free?

Would a ``unilateral'' coalition bring more security to the Middle East - or plunge the troubled region ever deeper into the perils of despair, hate and war?

Some of these questions will not be answered for years, but the early returns couldn't be more promising.

The world has just witnessed an event without historical precedent: An unrivaled superpower, with the means to trample and conquer nations at will, using its strength neither to oppress nor subjugate but to liberate and empower.

In a war that could have been won quickly and inexpensively with a single atomic blast, allied forces instead spent tens of billions of dollars and risked our soldiers' lives in an effort to minimize the civilian toll.

Our troops moved quickly to capture Iraqi oil fields, thereby saving the country's natural resources from the outgoing tyrant who planned to destroy them.

And they immediately wiped out Iraqi missile batteries, thus preventing Hussein's regime from striking Israel and possibly launching a full-scale Middle Eastern war.

The troops made every effort to minimize the damage and spare the Iraqi people. This is a war about which Americans can rightfully be proud.

Let freedom ring!

But much of the hard work still remains to be done: Establishing an authentic Iraqi government, transferring the country's oil supply to its people, keeping allied forces there only long enough to establish order, and no longer than that.

These are the standards by which America will be judged. These will be the signs that we have not made the Faustian bargain of exchanging freedom for license, that our appetite for power has not exceeded our longing to do good.

In the way the nation conducts its foreign policies, in the way elected leaders treat their office and in the way each of us lives our lives, this commitment to true freedom must be preserved.

Freedom has triumphed in Baghdad, and it must continue to triumph everywhere.

Let freedom ring!