The war in Iraq is coming to a close but is not over yet, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld warned Wednesday, listing at least 10 major tasks ahead before the war can be declared won even as the world watched dramatic footage of Baghdad residents dancing on broken statues and ripped posters of Saddam Hussein.

"I think it is safe to say the mood is in fact tipping," Rumsfeld said. "Saddam Hussein is now taking his rightful place alongside Hitler, Stalin, Lenin, Ceaucescu in the pantheon of failed, brutal dictators, and the Iraqi people are well on their way to freedom."

Vice President Richard Cheney sounded an equally triumphant note during a speech in New Orleans, suggesting the military portion of the campaign in Iraq is done.

"Bottom line? With less than half of the ground forces and two-thirds of the air assets used 12 years ago in Desert Storm, Secretary Rumsfeld and General Franks have achieved a far more difficult objective," Cheney said. "In removing the terror regime from Iraq, we send a very clear message to all groups that operate by means of terror and violence against the innocent. The United States and our coalition partners are showing that we have the capacity and the will to wage war on terror and to win decisively."

Chief among the remaining tasks is capturing, accounting for, "or otherwise dealing with" Saddam and his sons, according to Rumsfeld.

"It is hard to find a single person. It is hard to find them when they're alive and mobile, it's hard to find them when they're not well, and it's hard to find them if they're buried under rubble," Rumsfeld said.

Saddam was the focus of an attack Monday on the al-Mansour district of Baghdad, a massive strike with four satellite-guided bombs at a restaurant reportedly frequented by Baath party leaders.

"He's either dead or he's incapacitated, or he's healthy and cowering in some tunnel some place, trying to avoid being caught," Rumsfeld told reporters. "What else can one say?"

Thousands of special security forces, Baath party fighters and Fedayeen seem to have disappeared from the capital city. Some may have abandoned their posts. Many were killed in the fighting -- Central Command estimated 3,000 enemy deaths in one day of fighting alone -- and others may be trying to escape the city, according to Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Fighting continues throughout the city and roads out of Baghdad are being interdicted by U.S. forces to prevent regime leaders from fleeing, Myers said.

Some have already escaped into Syria or have moved on to third countries, Rumsfeld said.

"We are getting scraps of intelligence saying that Syria has been cooperative in facilitating the movement of people out of Iraq into Syria. And then in some cases they stay there ... finding safekeeping there; in other cases they're moving from Syria to still other places," Rumsfeld said.

Syria also continues to move military equipment into Iraq, which Rumsfeld called "unhelpful."

"I've accurately observed that they would be well advised to not provide military capabilities of Iraq. They seem to have made a conscious to decision to ignore that," he said.

As for steps the United States might take to retaliate against Damascus, Rumsfeld said he "had nothing to announce. We are still dealing with Iraq."

Rumsfeld warned of more battles to come; a large swath of land in central Iraq north of Baghdad through Tikrit and up to Mosul is not yet under U.S. control. U.S. Special Forces are operating in the area but a significant ground force has not yet moved into the region.

"More people are going to be killed; let there be no doubt. This is not over, despite all the celebrations on the street," Rumsfeld said.

There are some 10 Iraqi regular army divisions in northern Iraq and at least one brigade of a Republican Guard division near Tikrit, Saddam's birthplace, according to Myers. The Iraqi forces in the north will continue to be bombed from the air for "some time," he said.

U.S. Central Command said it is still making assessments of the forces in Tikrit but expects them to be a mix of regular, Special Republican Guard and irregular forces, similar to that which has been seen in other parts of the country.

U.S. special operations forces and Kurdish forces seized a small town 25 kilometers (about 15 miles) north of Mosul and captured more than 200 Iraqi fighters. Other units attacked Iraqi positions on a ridge near Irbil, destroying tanks, trucks and enemy forces, according to U.S. Central Command.

Southeast of Baghdad in Karbala, according to U.S. Central Command, a reconnaissance unit from the 101st Airborne Division discovered weapons caches, including in a school, and found an underground storage facility containing an abundance of food and air-defense missiles. Marines also found a truckload of heat-seeking SA-6 surface-to-air missiles.

In addition to finding or accounting for Saddam and his senior leaders, including his sons, Rumsfeld said U.S. forces still must secure the northern oil fields, find any chemical and biological weapons facilities, and secure Iraq's borders to prevent their proliferation. They also must capture or kill any terrorists that may be operating in Iraq and locate Baath party members and the records and weapons, as well as those of the Iraqi Intelligence Service, the Special Security Organization, the Fedayeen Saddam death squads and the Special Republican Guards.

Iraqi funds that have been hidden need to be rooted out and returned to the population. Finally, U.S. forces must establish security in the country to allow the creation of a new democratic government and the restoration of critical services, Rumsfeld said.

Rumsfeld said at least three government agencies including the Defense Department are offering rewards to Iraqis that help U.S. forces identify senior leaders and find chemical or biological weapons.

"They are very important, just as the opportunity for people to improve their lives and get off a black list is important. And there are rewards, and carrots and sticks. And we need help," Rumsfeld said.

Rumsfeld and Myers bristled at criticism about the apparent slow pace of the delivery of humanitarian aid into Iraq, and the fact that Jay Garner, the Pentagon's point man for reconstruction in Iraq, is not yet in the country.

Rumsfeld said reports on the humanitarian situation are fundamentally flawed because they suggest the problem was started by the war when in fact it began well before March 20.

"It didn't just occur. When they say some city's been -- one-third of the city doesn't have sufficient water, compare that with six months ago when maybe half of the city didn't have sufficient water," Rumsfeld said.

He pointed to Umm Qasr, the first city to be captured by coalition forces, as an example of the speed with which services are being returned.

"The population has increased from 15,000 to 40,000, due to the availability of supplies and employment. Water supply is above prewar levels. ... Electricity has been restored by U.K. engineers. Sufficient food is readily available. Medical facilities are sufficient and operating. UNICEF is providing supplies. The port's cleared of mines and open to limited operations. The channel needs dredging. Railway station is cleared by explosive ordnance detachment. Rail line is intact from there to Nasiriyah, and they intend to open a line within seven days, which will allow movement of bulk water up the Euphrates Valley," Rumsfeld said, reading from a situation report.

He and Myers said despite Garner's continued presence in Kuwait, he is the force behind the resumption of those critical services. Garner and his civil administration team will only go to Iraq when the Baghdad International Airport is secure enough to play host to civil flights.

In Qatar, Central Command spokesman Brig Gen. Vincent Brooks said coalition forces are slowly trying to get control of looting without a serious military crackdown.

"This is a lot of pent up energy that's been part of the lives of many of these people for their entire lives, and some of it can be anticipated. We will deal with this though," he said. "As we move through and work more and more closely with the Iraqi population itself, we think that these things will settle down," Brooks said.