Chaos Erupts in Parts of Central Iraq

By LEE KEATH
Associated Press Writer

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- A U.S. AC-130 gunship raked insurgents Friday night after hundreds of women and children fled the besieged city of Fallujah during a U.S.-declared pause in the Marine offensive. On the anniversary of the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime, Baghdad and parts of central Iraq were chaotic.

At a square in the capital where Saddam's statue was toppled a year ago, soldiers took down a disturbing new icon: pictures of the radical Shiite cleric whose followers have risen up against coalition forces in the south.

Gunmen running rampant on Baghdad's western edge attacked a fuel convoy, killing a U.S. soldier and an Iraqi driver and causing a fiery explosion that sent up a pall of black smoke. A Baghdad correspondent for Al-Jazeera Arab television said at least nine people were killed.

Another U.S. soldier was killed in an attack on a base elsewhere in the capital, and large groups of insurgents battled U.S. troops in two cities to the north, Baqouba and Muqdadiyah.

One Marine was killed in Fallujah and another wounded in exchanges of fire after U.S. forces called a halt to offensive operations in the city, a spokesman said.

The death - along with those of three Marines a day earlier announced Friday - brought the toll of U.S. troops killed across Iraq this week to 46. The fighting has killed more than 460 Iraqis - including more than 280 in Fallujah, a hospital official said. At least 647 U.S. soldiers have died in Iraq since the war began in March 2003.

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Before the war commenced I predicted that this would happen - that hundreds of American soldiers and thousands of Iraqi civilians would die - all in pursuit of weapons of mass destruction that did not exist. All this death and chaos because of a lie. In my book, George Bush is no better than Saddam Hussein and deserves to share a cell in Baghdad with him.