The dead American was a colonel.

A shaken-looking but unhurt Pentagon deputy, Paul Wolfowitz, said the attack "will not deter us from completing our mission" in Iraq.

But the bold strike from nearly point-blank range once again pointed up the vulnerability of even heavily guarded US facilities in Iraq, where American forces sustain an average of 26 lower-profile attacks daily, and where Deputy Secretary Wolfowitz had come to assess ways to defeat a stubborn six-month-old insurgency.

A day earlier, attackers firing rocket-propelled grenades had forced down a US Army helicopter north of Baghdad just hours after Wolfowitz left that area on the second day of a three-day visit.

One soldier was injured.

The modern, 462-room Al Rasheed houses officials of the US-led occupation office - the Coalition Provisional Authority - and US military personnel.

The 06h10 attack, awakening people across central Baghdad, left the concrete western face of the 18-story building pockmarked with a half-dozen or more blast holes.

Windows were shattered in at least two dozen rooms.

Torn drapes dangled out over sills.

The US command said the 15 wounded included seven American civilians, four US military personnel and four non-US civilians working for the coalition.

Iraqi police said the attacker or attackers, in a white Chevrolet pickup, had boldly driven to the edge of the city's main Zawra Park and Zoo, just a half-kilometre southwest of the hotel, towing what looked like a portable, two-wheeled generator or compressor.

A police commander, who spoke on condition he not be named, said that when security guards approached, the assailants drove off, but rockets within the blue trailer apparently had been set to fire via a timer and suddenly ignited, flashing toward the hotel, a clear shot looming just over the treetops.

The formerly government-owned Al Rasheed, Baghdad's best-known luxury hotel, was taken over by occupation authorities after US-British forces toppled the Baathist government of President Saddam Hussein last April.

- Nampa-AP

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