"BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraq (news - web sites) ordered Cable News Network (CNN), the U.S. television news channel, to leave Iraq on Friday and accused it of being a propaganda machine.

CNN, on air, said it was "sad to learn" that its four-strong team in Baghdad was being expelled.

"CNN has been ordered out of Iraq...because they have become a propaganda tool to spread lies and rumors," said an information ministry official who declined to be identified. CNN, based in Atlanta, Georgia, said its staff would probably have to travel overland to Jordan.

Overnight, CNN ran extensive live pictures of U.S. military units racing across the southern Iraq desert after they invaded the country and headed toward Baghdad, with little resistance. Iraqi government officials, at a news conference, said such pictures being shown on Western TV networks were fabrications."

CNN propaganda? Shocking!!