BAGHDAD, April 13 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - Iraqi anger grew Sunday, April 13, over continued lawlessness in their occupied country with local residents staging the first anti-American demonstration here since U.S. troops occupied their country last week amid mounting anger over widespread looting since Saddam Hussein s regime collapsed.

The protest by about 100 Iraqis came as U.S. forces began the task of restoring the battered country to normalcy, launching a recruitment drive to put Iraqis back to work in key sectors, Agence France-Presse (AFP) said.

If the size of the crowd was small, it reflected mounting impatience here with the U.S. failure to stem widespread looting and re-establish order and basic services since the regime of Saddam Hussein fell Wednesday, April 9.

Brandishing a huge banner that read "Bush=Saddam," the demonstrators gathered in front of the Palestine Hotel to criticize U.S. President George W. Bush for failing to fulfill his promise of a better Iraq.

"United States, you will regret it if you don't keep this promise," they chanted. "We will sacrifice our souls and our blood for Iraq!"

Baghdad was known as a bastion of state-organized anti-Americanism during Saddam's 24-year rule but Sunday's was tinged more with disappointment than ideological fervor.

One protester said the demonstration was meant "to tell the Americans that they're the ones who put Saddam in power and now they're going to try to force on us other rulers we don't want."

But near the site of the protest, hundreds of locals queued up for their first jobs in the post-Saddam area, triggering massive traffic jams in central Baghdad.

They flocked to a recruitment desk in the Palestine Hotel, where a marine spokeswoman said they were seeking to put Iraqis back at work in key sectors, starting with the police and electrical power departments.

"We want workers, not only senior officials," said Gunnery Sergeant Claudia Lamantia, of the 1st Marines Expeditionary Force. "The idea obviously is to get everything back working."

Baghdad, a city of five million people, has been without electricity for about 10 days while most homes are also without water and telephone services.

But the biggest fear among residents has been the security situation, highlighted by the pillage of entire sections of the city in recent days by rampaging youths from the immense Shiite suburb of Saddam City.

Lamantia, who was getting an earful of complaints from local citizens in the lobby of the Palestine Hotel, said the marines were holding Sunday their first meetings to rebuild the police force and power utility.

"There are fears that this is not happening fast enough," she said. "We are trying to do things one thing at a time."

More people were on the streets of Baghdad on Sunday and bus services were resuming between the Iraqi capital and cities in the south.

But shops remained closed and the sprawling city appeared to teeter between a massive drive for urban renewal or another descent into potential chaos.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said several Baghdad hospitals remained without water or power.

"(We) would like to deliver medical supplies to them. But right now we don't dare because everything is being ransacked," ICRC spokeswoman Nada Doumani told AFP in Geneva.

U.S.-led forces control most of Iraq, but pockets of resistance remain, snipers were still a concern and the city of Tikrit, Saddam's fiefdom around 180 kilometers (110 miles) north of Baghdad, was yet to be captured.