US forces struggled to crack down on marauding gangs in cities across Iraq today as Saddam Hussein's top scientific adviser became the first of his close associates to surrender.
One day after the United States listed 55 Iraqi leaders it wanted killed or captured, General Amer Hammoudi al-Saadi surrendered in Baghdad and was driven away in the front seat of a military jeep.
General Saadi told German television ZDF he had no idea where the deposed president was and insisted Iraq had none of the chemical or biological weapons that Washington gave as its reason for going to war.
US President George W. Bush, in his weekly radio address to the nation, said the war was not yet over.
Cautious after earlier unexpected setbacks in a campaign that has largely gone his way, Mr Bush warned that "hard fighting" might lie ahead for troops putting down pockets of resistance.
In central Baghdad, a firefight erupted and US troops said they had killed 20 foes. To the north, planes bombed Saddam's home town of Tikrit, the only major centre still holding out.
Mr Bush hailed Saddam's fall, but made no mention of chaos that has erupted as gangs, freed from decades of iron control, ransacked offices, shops and even Baghdad's antiquities museum.
A week after the Americans punched their way into the Iraqi capital, marines set up round-the-clock patrols and planned a night curfew in some quarters to check the lawlessness.
Anarchy and violence also traumatised the northern cities of Mosul and Kirkuk, which were seized almost unopposed by Kurdish fighters over the past 48 hours.
"If the Americans are liberating us, let them restore order because this has been as bad as any two days of my life with Saddam," said Mr Jassem Mohammed, from Kirkuk's Turkmen minority. Students in Baghdad marched demanding law and order.
US commanders focused on wrapping up the 24-day-old war, sending planes to pound Tikrit, 180 km (110 miles) north of Baghdad, and sending in army reinforcements from Kuwait -- but they also said they would cut their naval presence in the Gulf. The military says its first job is to fight and policing must take a back seat, but it is now moving to restore order and quell anarchy that has even seen hospitals stripped bare.
The International Committee of the Red Cross said soldiers were now guarding a Baghdad water plant and major hospital.
But gangs ransacked the National Museum, smashing display cases to grab treasures dating back thousands of years to the dawn of civilisation in Mesopotamia.
France, which opposed the war, urged the United States and Britain to ensure security for the Iraqi people.