For Iraqis living in the Pioneer Valley, the capture of Saddam Hussein is a great event to be celebrated.

The capture of Saddam has been the best news I've ever had for a long time, said Musaddak J. Alhabeeb, a University of Massachusetts professor of resource economics who fled Iraq in 1982. ''I and my family are so happy that he is history now.''

For Mohammed Jiyad, a Five College senior lecturer in Arabic based at Mount Holyoke College, the news was liberating. ''This is a day I have been waiting for and I thought probably I would never see it,'' Jiyad said in a telephone interview. ''It is wonderful.''For Hasan Humadi of Amherst, who teaches math in the Holyoke public schools, a dream has come true. ''This is the best day of my life. This is the dream of millions of people not only inside Iraq, but all the human beings in the world. I couldn't sleep the first night.''

Alhabeeb, in an e-mail response to questions, said, ''It is going to be possible for us to visit our families and friends in Baghdad after 21 years of pain and suffering. We will go for a reunion visit once the security situation is better.'' He has several brothers and sisters and extended family in Baghdad.

Alhabeeb left his native Baghdad in 1982 during the Iran-Iraq War. ''Saddam Hussein went from bad to worse. I was just a young professor at University of Baghdad. Both my wife and I were suffocated,'' he said. They left for graduate school at the University of Illinois, were granted political asylum and became American citizens a few years ago. They live in Belchertown.

Jiyad, who now lives in Montague, said, ''I have a huge family - immediate, extended, clan and tribe - in the south near Nasiriya. I hope when things calm down I will go for a visit.''

Jiyad left Iraq in 1976 after being told by the Ba'athist Party that he couldn't accept a UNESCO scholarship to study abroad. ''I decided to go into self-exile,'' he said. A few years later the Iraqi government revoked his passport and, until he became an American citizen in 1998, ''I was a citizen without a state for 18 years.''

Saddam Hussein's government harassed Jiyad's family because of his departure. Two brothers and a sister also fled their homeland, settling in Norway. Jiyad has five sisters remaining in Iraq and 37 nieces and nephews. A cousin has been elected president of a university in Nasiriya.

Humadi, who came to the United States in 1995, has a special reason to despise Saddam Hussein: In 1980, outside a holy place in Nasiriya, ''Saddam's soldiers captured everyone. They took my two brothers and my cousin.'' The family always hoped the men were in prison and would someday come home, but last spring, when mass graves were found by American troops, they learned on the Internet that they were dead. ''They were killed 20 years ago, and he never told us,'' Humadi said.

Alhabeeb said the capture of the Iraqi dictator is critical to the future of his homeland. ''It is extremely important for all Iraqis to witness that he has been finally gotten. The vast majority of Iraqis have been living in fear for 40 years. His specter has been sucking every breath of living in them. Even after the fall of his regime, the ordinary Iraqi could not be himself, knowing that Saddam is still there somewhere. His flight was a huge obstacle for people to participate fully in the new life and enjoy a new day,'' Alhabeeb said.

The Iraqi natives disagreed on where Saddam Hussein should be tried.

''Absolutely, he must stand a public trial by an Iraqi court, assisted and monitored by American legal expertise,'' Alhabeeb said.'' I believe healing among the scarred Iraqis cannot start without bringing Saddam and his henchmen, and the entire national command of the Ba'ath party, into the halls of justice. The souls of hundreds of thousands of victims and their anguished families have the right to face their murderers, torturers, and thieves in courts of law.''

Alhabeeb explained, ''It is crucial to show that Iraqis will be in charge of their destinies, especially at a time when the Arab streets are using the occupation theme to distort the genuine purpose.'' He added, ''It is a golden opportunity to utilize this historic event to show the new Iraq as a country of law and justice in their true meaning - and it is important to show Saddam's final fate to the local remnants of his henchmen as a lesson.''

Jiyad said, ''I would rather have him put on trial at the international level to show the rest of the world the crimes of his regime. The Iraqis know there was crime, and they are itching to get the rope around his neck.''

Humadi said it doesn't matter where Saddam is tried. ''I can't wait to see him in court. I want to see what will be his answer to all the crimes,'' Humadi said.

Jiyad is against capital punishment for Saddam Hussein. ''I would rather he stay behind bars until he meets his creator. I am not for a quick solution for his misery,'' Jiyad said.

Alhabeeb said he generally opposes the death penalty, but would prefer it for Hussein.

''I feel I can make a big exception here. If one human on earth deserves to die, it would be Saddam, because his guilt is beyond any shadow of a doubt, and the evidence of his atrocities would fill a ship.''

Humadi also favors the death penalty for Hussein.

''We want him to suffer before he dies, to see him suffer like the millions of people he made to suffer,'' Humadi said.

Although the capture of Saddam Hussein bodes well for the future of Iraq, the Iraqi-born American citizens said much work needs to be done by the Americans and the Iraqis. The future depends on ridding the country of all elements of the Ba'ath Party, founded by Hussein, and a clear separation between secular government and Muslim clerics, Alhabeeb said.

Humadi said he was shocked to see on television some Iraqis bewailing Saddam's capture. ''I didn't know such idiot people were still in Iraq. Maybe he washed their brains.''

Jiyad said he is very worried about a prolonged American occupation. ''An early exit for the Americans troops is the answer,'' he said.

Right now American troops are not winning the hearts and minds of Iraqis, he warned. He cited instances - reported more often in the foreign press than in America - of troops storming into private homes in the middle of the night. ''That will win more enemies,'' he said. ''The policy of iron fist, breaking into their houses in the middle of the night, going into their bedrooms and frightening women and children, is wrong. They insult and humiliate a man in front of his family.''

Jiyad said many Iraqis still believe the Americans have come for oil and for control, not to liberate them from a harsh regime. ''The policy of a hard line will strengthen the religious factions and they are now the ones who soak up the political vacuum,'' Jiyad said.

''You captured Saddam. Take him and leave Iraq,'' Jiyad advised.

Alhabeeb ended his e-mail with these words:

''I am full of hope for a better Iraq, and a better Middle East. I believe this is the time for the Middle East to change, and Iraq would be the model. I truly think that millions of Iraqis have been overwhelmed with hope and excitement as they witness the beginning of the end of tyranny and the demise of the Ba'athists in Iraq. In spite of the great difficulties now and ahead, most are very optimistic for a free, unified and democratic Iraq.''