Rasoul Hammed Najeed stood outside his home sobbing uncontrollably for his 5-year-old son, killed while playing near a busy Baghdad vegetable market when an air raid struck.
"After this crime, I wish I could see [US President George W.] Bush in order to cut him to pieces with my teeth," he cried.
Another man, identified as Saad Abd Qasim, stood as if in a trance, unable to speak.
Friends said his wife, his child and the wife of his son had been among the 50 to 60 people Iraqis say were killed in the raid.
"We heard a plane flying over us. We saw a rocket coming in our direction, and then we heard the explosion. My shop was shaken but, thank God, I am safe," said Eyad Abadi, 30.
The raid took place late on Friday in the run-down, working-class district of Shula in northwest Baghdad, inhabited mostly by Shiite Muslims.
Most of the one-storey shops in the immediate area were demolished. The ground was covered with blood and broken glass.
This correspondent saw 10 corpses. He also saw a crater about 2m wide and half a meter deep. Many cars nearby were badly damaged.
Abu Dhabi television said US cruise missiles may have hit the market.
The US military blamed another explosion earlier this week in a Baghdad residential area on an errant Iraqi missile. It had no immediate comment on Friday's raid.
There were scenes of panic and confusion at the nearby Al-Noor Hospital as relatives tried to locate or comfort injured loved ones.
"Is this the humanity that Bush is talking about? He has no mercy at all. May God make him fail," said Ali Kadhin, whose three-year-old son was badly injured in the attack.
Dr Osama Sakhari said he had counted 55 people killed in the raid and more than 47 wounded. Iraqi Information Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf said at least 58 people had been killed.
Sakhari said he had counted 15 children among the dead.
"The hospital couldn't accommodate all the wounded. We had to send some of the wounded to two other hospitals in Baghdad," Sakhari said.
He added that a child had just died in his arms.
"I ask Bush and [British Prime Minister Tony] Blair to imagine how they would feel if their child died in their arms," he said.
Bush and Blair say their 10-day-old war is aimed at removing President Saddam Hussein and the Iraqi leadership and ridding the country of weapons of mass destruction. Baghdad denies it has any such weapons.
But the television pictures of Friday's attack, broadcast across the Arab world and beyond, are sure to damage further their efforts to convince ordinary Iraqis that the military onslaught is not aimed against them.
"I think Bush and Blair are angry because the name of the market hit is called `Nasr' [victory]. I think this is why they raided it," said Sadhil Jabbar Hussein, nursing a large cut in his leg.
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