The face of Iraq is changing, even on its paper money:

Iraq has unveiled new banknotes with pictures of an ancient Babylonian ruler and a 10th-century Iraqi mathematician in place of the smiling face of Saddam Hussein.

The Babylonian ruler Hammurabi, credited with creating the first written code of laws in human history, graces the pink 25,000 dinar note.

The other side shows a smiling Kurdish farm worker - reflecting Iraq's disparate communities - holding a sheaf of wheat.

Astronomer and mathematician Abu Ali al-Hasan ibn al-Haytham, born in Basra in 965 and known as Alhazen to medieval scholars in the West, is on one side of the 10,000 dinar note, the only other human figure on the new notes.

The Hussein nightmare is being swept away elsewhere. Though the Iraqi people have done a thorough cleaning themselves, the Coalition Provisional Authority is seeing to the removal of Saddam from every street corner, billboard, public building, textbook or anywhere else the deposed dictator's ugly mug might remain.

Both achievements should be kept in mind while the Allies continue to struggle with remnants of the regime and their sympathizers.