On The Scene: Chaos In Baghdad

(CBS)  CBS News Correspondent Lara Logan is in Baghdad, where she filed this report.

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As daylight broke over Baghdad, artillery fire ripped through the morning air.

Saddam's main palace was under American attack. The earth exploded with bombs and mortars. An Iraqi munitions depot was hit sending orange flames and white flashes cascading into the sky. Black smoke billowed from Iraqi oil fires that did nothing to stop the American advance.

Through the haze, American tanks could be seen entering the palace scattering Iraqi troops.

As the battle tore into the heart of the capital, wounded Iraqi soldiers were rushed to a nearby hospital.

From their beds they cried out in pain.

They were not the only casualties. Injured civilians poured in threatening to overwhelm medical staff. The old, the young, men and women alike, no one has been spared. One hospital reported receiving 175 wounded by midday.

A crater is all that remains of four families and their homes -- obliterated by a massive bomb that dropped from the sky without warning in the middle afternoon.

Emotions at the scene of that bomb are running high. People don't understand why a residential neighborhood had been hit.

"This is the mercy of Bush? He is lying. He is lying," said one Iraqi man.

Iraq's Information Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf also had harsh words for the Americans.

"We will slaughter them, all those invaders -- their tombs will be here in Iraq," said Saeed al-Sahhaf.

Standing about 300 yards from the battle scene at the palace he denied that American troops were in Baghdad.

And Iraqi TV showed a smiling Saddam Hussein meeting members of his cabinet along with scenes from the Iraqi front lines. But as the day drew to a close, U.S. tanks stationed outside Saddam's palace showed no signs of leaving.