Yahoo! News - Iraq in Turmoil on Anniversary of Saddam's Fall
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Bloody turmoil reigned in Iraq on Friday, the first anniversary of Saddam Hussein's fall, with Sunni and Shi'ite rebels battling U.S.-led forces and holding three Japanese and other foreign hostages.

This week's bloodshed, engulfing the hitherto quiescent Shi'ite south as well as the bastions of Sunni insurgency in central Iraq, has shown how far the United States is from securing the country whose dictator it toppled on April 9, 2003.

Iraq's U.S. administrator Paul Bremer said U.S. forces had unilaterally suspended operations in the Sunni town of Falluja at midday after this week's crackdown on guerrillas.

He said the cease-fire would allow humanitarian access and what would be unprecedented talks with insurgents. About 10 bodies lay in the streets of the town west of Baghdad after heavy overnight fighting, witnesses said.

Bremer announced the Falluja cease-fire after five days of street fighting in which up to 300 Iraqis have been reported killed and U.S. Marines have also taken casualties.

Talks with insurgents? Maybe we should have tried that in the first place, eh? Before this all ever started?