BAGHDAD, Iraq - While the administration of President Bush touted its accomplishments in Iraq, some Iraqis said Saturday they're more insecure as attacks persist a year after the United States launched military strikes to oust Saddam Hussein.

Insurgents fired four mortar rounds at the offices of a Kurdish political party in the northern city of Mosul on Saturday, but missed and killed a driver on a nearby street, Iraqi police Maj. Dara Abdelalah said. Guards then fired at the rebels and three party members and a passer-by were wounded in the shootout, he said.

U.S. troops and Iraqi police also arrested a former police colonel in Saddam's regime on Friday in the northern city of Kirkuk, local police commander Sarhat Qadir said. The detainee was suspected of having links to insurgents.

While much of Iraq is relatively quiet, rebel attacks on coalition forces and horrific bombings of civilians have plagued the capital and Sunni areas to the north and west, where support for Saddam was strongest when he was in power. Suicide bombers have also targeted Kurds in the north and the Shiite city of Karbala, south of Baghdad.

"There has been a spike in attacks on coalition forces and soft targets," Secretary of State Colin Powell acknowledged Friday at a news conference in Baghdad during a surprise, one-day visit. "We have to shift as the enemy shifts. They move from harder targets to softer targets."

Bush marked the anniversary of the beginning of the war in a speech Friday at the White House, declaring that the fall of Saddam removed a source of violence, aggression and instability in the Middle East.

"There are still violent thugs and murderers in Iraq, and we're dealing with them," Bush said. "But no one can argue that the Iraqi people would be better off with the thugs and murderers back in the palaces."

Some Baghdad residents, however, said Iraqis were more insecure than they were before Bush ordered military strikes on March 19, 2003. The anniversary falls on March 20 in Iraq, because of the time difference.

"The security situation is worse than one year ago. I cannot take my family outside at nights. When I walk in the street, I do not know when a bomb is going to explode and kill me. We were better secured during Saddam's time," said Ammar Samir, 26, who works for a private trading company. "The Americans have failed to provide security and prosperity to the Iraqi people."