Wave of attacks in Iraq on invasion anniversary

US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has just told Fox News: "It's a wonderful thing to see 25 million Iraqis liberated, to see their economy improve as it has been, to see their political process move toward democracy."

And in a radio address on Saturday, George W. Bush said: "Only the fire of liberty can purge the ideologies of murder by offering hope to those who yearn to live free."

Meanwhile:

> In Mosul, a suicide bomber with a fake badge slipped into a building housing the provincial anti-corruption department and blew himself up inside the office of its chief, General Walid Kachmoula, killing him and two of his guards.

> Attackers struck again hours later opening fire on the procession bearing Kachmoula's coffin, killing two and wounding 14.

> Separately, two unidentified bodies shot in the chest and head were found in the city.

> In Baquba a truck bomb rammed into the entrance of an Iraqi army barrack killing at least four police.

> In the capital, 24 Iraqi insurgents were killed and six coalition soldiers wounded in a firefight, the US military claimed.

> In Kirkuk, one US soldier was killed and three wounded by a roadside bomb, and an Iraqi army commander General Mohsen Hazaa Bayram al-Bayati, was seriously wounded in an assassination attempt.

> In Baiji, a Turkish driver travelling in a convoy escorted by the US military was killed by small arms fire.

In Samara a policeman was killed and three others wounded in a gun attack, and the bodies of an Iraqi army officer and his cousin were found.

> In Basra, a civilian was killed when a roadside bomb exploded in the path of a police patrol, and an official convoy headed to the capital from Basra was ambushed and 10 guards were kidnapped.