Baghdad, Iraq ? A man who lived in sprawling palaces was pulled from a hole in the dirt. A man who challenged the greatest armies in the world was arrested without firing a shot. A man who embezzled billions of dollars and put his image on every Iraqi bank note was found with a single suitcase of cash — bearing the face of an American, Benjamin Franklin.

The image that emerged Sunday of Saddam Hussein in captivity contrasted in almost every way to the life of one of the world’s most despised dictators.

“He was subservient and broken,” said Iraqi leader Mouwafak al-Rabii, who saw Saddam in detention. “Saddam looked like a thug.”

It was quite a fall for the self-proclaimed “builder of modern Iraq.”

During Saddam’s reign, his picture graced streets and offices in a hundred different guises, from modern-day field marshal to medieval Arab warrior on horseback. His countenance, with a solemn but pleased expression, was printed on Iraqi dinars of every denomination.

He moved between dozens of palaces scattered across Iraq — sprawling, grandiose complexes with houses for his children, his bodyguards, his aides and his prostitutes, as well as hospitals, gymnasiums and zoos. Two of the palaces were topped with 10-foot busts of Saddam in a tropical helmet.

Reign of terror

His opulence was rivaled only by his brutality. Conservative estimates say he had 300,000 people executed; some say the number is more than 1 million. Once, Saddam had a cameraman film him as he walked along a row of executed opponents, putting a final bullet into each one’s head.

In 1988, when Kurds in northern Iraq were pushing for autonomy, he bombed and shelled the town of Halabja with cyanide gas. At least 5,000 men, women and children died.

Saddam built a huge army, with nearly 1 million soldiers at the start of the 1991 Gulf War. He went to war with neighboring Iran in 1980, fighting for eight years before agreeing to a cease-fire. In 1990 he invaded Kuwait and seemed surprised when a U.S.-led coalition drove him out. He ordered his scientists to build a nuclear bomb.

But after a lifetime of successful brinkmanship, he went too far in a final dare to the United States. When President George W. Bush told him to resign or face an invasion, Saddam retorted that the Americans would face a bloodbath.

Less than a month later, the Americans were in his main palace, and Saddam was hiding.

Few details emerged Sunday about his whereabouts in the months that followed. But his capture indicated that Saddam had taken a long, hard fall.

U.S. soldiers found him hidden in a hole with nothing more than a pistol on his lap. The adobe house above him was rudimentary at best, with a single bed and one chair.

As for the Iraqi people, who stared in awe at the televised images of Saddam in his disheveled state while an American medic probed his mouth, there was little nobility left of Iraq’s great builder.

“Like a mouse”

“For the last 35 years Saddam Hussein presented himself as a lion against the Americans and the West,” said Laad Hamadi, a civil engineer. “And now, today, they found him like a mouse.”