Baghdad is all but fallen and it is pretty much visible on the grim faces of the Iraqi diplomats in the Iraqi mission in New Delhi.

Senior diplomats are holed up in 'important' meetings as the rest of the staff watch images of arson, celebration and US forces moving into Baghdad.

Few weeks earlier, Adday O Al-Sakab, Charge d' Affairs of the Iraqi mission sounded very confident of a strong Iraqi defiance and eventual victory for Saddam Hussein, as he briefed reporters.

Now, with the American control over Baghdad almost a certainty, he is busy deciding on the next course of action.

Speaking to rediff.com he tries to assert that Saddam Hussein was still in control and the Americans would be halted. He says that the Iraqi mission in India will continue working here despite the consequences of the war.

What if the Americans change the regime in Iraq? Will the Iraqi diplomats loyal to Saddam still stay in India? Will they switch loyalties?

"There is no question of America changing the Iraqi government. The Iraqi diplomats are not leaving India. We have not heard anything from our Indian friends on the issue. Certainly there will be no defections," Al-Sakab said.

The Iraqi Charge d'Affairs, however, has no information whether the Indian government is going to recognise him and his team of diplomats as diplomatic representative of Iraq, once a 'regime change' occurs.

The embassy, meanwhile, offers a press release condemning the death of two journalists on Monday in the US bombing on a Baghdad hotel. "US forces believe that that the press people are a threat to their propaganda campaign. We openly put these facts to show that the barbarian and dual criteria of the US administration and their propaganda of democracy and freedom to other people," the release said.

At the reception, mission staff watch scenes from Baghdad on an Arabic channel. An Arab man is shown beating a Saddam Hussein poster with his shoe, while another raises his traditional dress and urinates on Hussein's picture.

Suddenly the channel is switched to Al-Jazeera and someone blurts out something in Arabic. "Kurd", was the only comprehensible word.

Outside the Iraqi embassy, a solitary security guard hangs around. There are no visitors, no security checks unlike the massive security cordon and long visa queues at the American embassy at the other end of the city.

A poster of Saddam Hussein hangs on the boundary wall, an Iraqi flag flies in the hot Delhi air.