[Ramona_A_Stone]

• SAN ANTONIO, Texas (March 30) - An emotional former President George H.W. Bush on Tuesday defended his son's Iraq war and lashed out at White House critics.

• FALLUJAH, Iraq (March 31) - A vengeful crowd of cheering Iraqis dragged the burned and mutilated bodies of four American contractors through the streets of Fallujah Wednesday after killing them in a vehicle ambush.

• It is "deeply offensive and contemptible" to hear "elites and intellectuals on the campaign trail" dismiss progress in Iraq since last year's overthrow of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, the elder Bush said in a speech to the National Petrochemical and Refiners Association annual convention.

"There is something ignorant in the way they dismiss the overthrow of a brutal dictator and the sowing of the seeds of basic human freedom in that troubled part of the world," he said.

• Some had predicted that after Saddam's capture Dec. 13, the insurgency would lose momentum and security for Iraqis and U.S. troops would improve. Instead the killing has continued at roughly a constant pace, and attacks against Iraqi civilians have increased.

• The former president appeared to fight back tears as he complained about media coverage of the younger Bush that he called "something short of fair and balanced."

• BAGHDAD (March 31) - Thousands of Iraqi protesters blocked streets in central Baghdad for hours on Wednesday, demanding the reopening of a newspaper U.S. authorities shut down for what they called incitement to violence.

• Associated Press Television News pictures showed one man beating a charred corpse with a metal pole. Others tied a yellow rope to a body, hooked it to a car and dragged it down the main street of town. Two blackened and mangled corpses were hung from a green iron bridge across the Euphrates.

• "It hurts an awful lot more when it's your son that is being criticized than when they used to get all over my case," said Bush, who has often complained about media coverage of both Bush presidencies.

• "We denounce the occupation and its methods," cleric Sheikh Tahsin al-Itabi said. "They claim to represent freedom -- stopping a newspaper is against freedom..."

• Though none of the alleged weapons of mass destruction have been found, the Bush administration says progress toward a stable democracy is being made.

• In all, at least 597 U.S. troops have died in Iraq since the war began March 20, 2003. Of the total, 459 have died since May 1 when Bush flew onto an aircraft carrier off the California coast to declare the end of major combat.

• The former president, who waged the first Gulf War against Saddam in 1991, described progress in Iraq as "a miracle."

• A man held a printed sign with a skull and crossbones and the phrase ''Fallujah is the cemetery for Americans'' beneath the blackened corpses after they were pulled from the vehicles.

• More than a hundred of Sadr's supporters protesting on Wednesday wore black shirts with Mehdi Army written on them. Four clerics went inside the fortified U.S. compound to meet the Iraqi Governing Council. "If they don't listen to us, I'm ready to go inside without weapons and fight to the death," protester Ali Yasseri said.

• "Iraq is moving forward in hope and not sliding back into despair and terrorism," the senior Bush said.

• ''This is the fate of all Americans who come to Falluja,'' said Mohammad Nafik, one of the crowd surrounding the bodies.

Some body parts were pulled off and left hanging from a telephone cable, while two incinerated bodies were later strung from a bridge and left dangling there.