Cycle Lite works in Firefox, but not in IE8

Cycle Lite works in Firefox, but not in IE8

I am using Cycle Lite for a simple slideshow.  It works great in FF, but will not work in IE8.  All it does in IE8 is show the outline of the images and the alt image titles.  The js is:

<script type="text/javascript" src="jquery-1.5.1.min.js"></script>

<script type="text/javascript" src="jquery.cycle.lite.min.js"></script>


<script type="text/javascript">
  $(document).ready(function() {
    $('.banner').cycle();
  });
</script>

The html is:
    <div class="banner">
    <img src="images/slideshow.png" alt="Love, Faith, and Rock &amp; Roll" />

    <img src="images/candles.png" alt="Candles" />
    <img src="images/garbage.png" alt="Cleaning Up Loring Park" />
    <img src="images/band.png" alt="Spirit Garage Band" />
 
    </div> <!-- end #banner -->

When I use the debugging tool with IE, I get 2 errors. First, it says the first character in the jquery 1.5.1 file is an undefined character.  All it is is a forward slash to start the comment section.  Second, it says that jquery is undefined in the cycle script.

Yes, I have given the img tags height and width and I am using jquery 1.5.1.

Greatly appreciate any help on this!  Hope it's a simple solution!