QUOTE
Suicide bomb at heart of Iraqi democracy
AM - Friday, 13 April , 2007 09:15:00
Reporter: Michael Rowland
TONY EASTLEY: The heavily fortified Green Zone in Baghdad is one of the toughest security spots in the world, yet somehow a suicide bomber has breached its checkpoints and made it into the Iraqi Parliament building, killing eight people and wounding dozens of others.
The Parliament complex lies in the heart of the top security zone, supposedly a safe area for politicians, Western diplomats and the media.
The attack raises questions about the effectiveness of the new US security crackdown in Iraq.
Washington Correspondent Michael Rowland prepared this report.
(Sound of a man speaking in Iraqi Parliament)
MICHAEL ROWLAND: It was almost a full house in the Iraqi Parliament during the morning debate. Proceedings were adjourned for lunch and the politicians made a beeline to the parliamentary cafeteria. So too did a suicide bomber.
(Sound of an explosion and screaming)
This recording, picked up by a TV camera crew conducting an interview at the time of explosion, conveys the mad panic that ensued in the moments after the blast.
Those who survived the bombing frantically searched for their friends and colleagues, the wounded cried for help.
(Sound of people screaming)
Bodies lay strewn across the cafeteria floor. Eight died, including two lawmakers. At least 30 were injured.
Somehow, the suicide bomber had managed to infiltrate perhaps the most heavily fortified building in the already tightly secured Green Zone.
Iraq's Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said it was a criminal, cowardly act. Iraqi officials claim the bomber was a bodyguard of a Sunni parliamentarian.
US military spokesman, Major General William Caldwell, offered his own theory.
WILLIAM CALDWELL: Clearly, we're looking at it closely. We know in the past that suicide vests have been used predominately by al-Qaeda, and obviously we'll go into great detail to look at this one.
MICHAEL ROWLAND: The human impact of the attack was devastating, so too was its symbolic effect.
Two months after new US troops started patrolling the streets of Baghdad as part of the new security crackdown, this assault so clearly demonstrates militants can penetrate the City's most heavily guarded area.
Lieutenant colonel Chris Garver, another Baghdad-based military spokesman, was left to explain the obvious.
CHRIS GARVER: The international zone is safer than many places in Baghdad, but it is obviously not safe, and there is no place here that is perfectly safe.
MICHAEL ROWLAND: The attack has seriously undermined the Bush administration's recent proclamations that progress is being made on the streets of Baghdad.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice says the so-called "troop surge" was always going to incite counter-attacks by insurgents.
CONDOLEEZZA RICE: It's obviously a time ... we've said that there are going to be good days and bad days concerning the security plan, but the commanders are carrying out their responsibilities and working to try to make the population more secure.
We're really at the beginning of this, not at the end of it. But there will be good days and bad days.
MICHAEL ROWLAND: For President Bush, the bad days in Iraq are still far outnumbering the good.
Almost lost in the flurry created by the Parliament attack was the news that another 10 people were killed overnight in a truck bombing on a key Baghdad bridge. Yet Mr Bush sees all of this as a reason to persist.
GEORGE W. BUSH: My message to the Iraqi Government is we stand with you as you take the steps necessary to not only reconcile politically, but also put a security force in place that is able to deal, you know, with these kind of people.
MICHAEL ROWLAND: As the events overnight have shown "these kinds of people" are just as persistent, and they're also dangerously inventive.
In Washington, this is Michael Rowland reporting for AM.
AM - Friday, 13 April , 2007 09:15:00
Reporter: Michael Rowland
TONY EASTLEY: The heavily fortified Green Zone in Baghdad is one of the toughest security spots in the world, yet somehow a suicide bomber has breached its checkpoints and made it into the Iraqi Parliament building, killing eight people and wounding dozens of others.
The Parliament complex lies in the heart of the top security zone, supposedly a safe area for politicians, Western diplomats and the media.
The attack raises questions about the effectiveness of the new US security crackdown in Iraq.
Washington Correspondent Michael Rowland prepared this report.
(Sound of a man speaking in Iraqi Parliament)
MICHAEL ROWLAND: It was almost a full house in the Iraqi Parliament during the morning debate. Proceedings were adjourned for lunch and the politicians made a beeline to the parliamentary cafeteria. So too did a suicide bomber.
(Sound of an explosion and screaming)
This recording, picked up by a TV camera crew conducting an interview at the time of explosion, conveys the mad panic that ensued in the moments after the blast.
Those who survived the bombing frantically searched for their friends and colleagues, the wounded cried for help.
(Sound of people screaming)
Bodies lay strewn across the cafeteria floor. Eight died, including two lawmakers. At least 30 were injured.
Somehow, the suicide bomber had managed to infiltrate perhaps the most heavily fortified building in the already tightly secured Green Zone.
Iraq's Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said it was a criminal, cowardly act. Iraqi officials claim the bomber was a bodyguard of a Sunni parliamentarian.
US military spokesman, Major General William Caldwell, offered his own theory.
WILLIAM CALDWELL: Clearly, we're looking at it closely. We know in the past that suicide vests have been used predominately by al-Qaeda, and obviously we'll go into great detail to look at this one.
MICHAEL ROWLAND: The human impact of the attack was devastating, so too was its symbolic effect.
Two months after new US troops started patrolling the streets of Baghdad as part of the new security crackdown, this assault so clearly demonstrates militants can penetrate the City's most heavily guarded area.
Lieutenant colonel Chris Garver, another Baghdad-based military spokesman, was left to explain the obvious.
CHRIS GARVER: The international zone is safer than many places in Baghdad, but it is obviously not safe, and there is no place here that is perfectly safe.
MICHAEL ROWLAND: The attack has seriously undermined the Bush administration's recent proclamations that progress is being made on the streets of Baghdad.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice says the so-called "troop surge" was always going to incite counter-attacks by insurgents.
CONDOLEEZZA RICE: It's obviously a time ... we've said that there are going to be good days and bad days concerning the security plan, but the commanders are carrying out their responsibilities and working to try to make the population more secure.
We're really at the beginning of this, not at the end of it. But there will be good days and bad days.
MICHAEL ROWLAND: For President Bush, the bad days in Iraq are still far outnumbering the good.
Almost lost in the flurry created by the Parliament attack was the news that another 10 people were killed overnight in a truck bombing on a key Baghdad bridge. Yet Mr Bush sees all of this as a reason to persist.
GEORGE W. BUSH: My message to the Iraqi Government is we stand with you as you take the steps necessary to not only reconcile politically, but also put a security force in place that is able to deal, you know, with these kind of people.
MICHAEL ROWLAND: As the events overnight have shown "these kinds of people" are just as persistent, and they're also dangerously inventive.
In Washington, this is Michael Rowland reporting for AM.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/12/world/mi...amp;oref=slogin
QUOTE
April 12, 2007
Suicide Bomber at Parliament Kills 8 Iraqis
By ALISSA J. RUBIN
BAGHDAD, April 12 — A suicide bomber wearing an explosive vest struck deep inside the heavily fortified International Zone on Thursday, killing eight people when he detonated inside the Parliament building just a few feet from the main chamber.
In a separate and in some ways equally traumatic attack early in the day, a truck bomb destroyed the beloved, 60-year-old Sarafiya bridge across the Tigris and killed six people. The heavily traveled bridge has long been a symbol of Baghdad, illustrated on old postcards and drawings of the city from a more peaceful time.
The attack on the Parliament was the worst bombing to take place in the International Zone since the protected area was established four years ago, when it was known as the Green Zone. At a time when Iraqis are increasingly questioning the government’s ability to protect them, the bombing raised the troubling possibility that it cannot even fully protect itself, although it is at the wellspring of American and Iraqi military power in the city.
The bomber struck a half hour after the day’s session had closed, in a cafe area where lawmakers were lingering across from the main chamber. Among the dead were at least two lawmakers, both from Sunni Arab parties. Of the 23 people wounded, 11 were parliamentarians, the United States military reported.
“This is a cowardly act and this proves that terrorism is indiscriminate. Sunnis, Shia, Kurds have been injured and maimed and killed in this attack. This should be a reminder that all Iraqis are targeted,” said Deputy Prime Minister Barham Saleh, after visiting the wounded at the Ibn Sina hospital, which is run by the United States military.
Mr. Saleh and Mowaffak al-Rubaie, the Iraqi national security adviser, who was also visiting the wounded, said the attack was a major security breach in the International Zone. Regulations there require visitors to undergo multiple layers of screening by an array of Iraqi forces, foreign contractors and American soldiers.
The image of the International Zone as an impregnable fortress had already been on the wane. Regular rocket and mortar attacks on the United States Embassy compound have killed a civilian and a soldier and wounded several others in recent weeks. And senior military officials said two suicide vests were found in a garbage bin in the Green Zone about two weeks ago.
Accordingly, news of the Parliament attack came less as a shock to Iraqis than as further evidence of the government’s impotence, even in the midst of a major security push in the city.
“I am not surprised this happened at the Parliament,” said Waqas al-Ubaidi, 30, who was standing outside the hospital waiting for news of his uncle, a member of Parliament, Salman al-Jumaili. “The coming days will be worse, every day is worse.”
But the attack was a heavy blow on a day when Baghdad residents had already been horrified by news of the bridge bombing, a demoralizing strike that stole one of the few remaining reminders of better days in the capital.
The bomber drove a tanker truck loaded with explosives onto the bridge at 7 a.m. and brought it to a halt midway, according to American military officials and witnesses. The driver examined the truck’s underside and then disappeared. With the truck blocking traffic, motorists stopped a police patrol crossing the bridge and asked them to do something about it.
Immediately suspicious, the police moved cars and people off the bridge and radioed to the patrols on the opposite side to stop people from starting across. One witness, a tractor driver, described a policeman opening the passenger door of the truck and seeing a mass of wires and batteries and running away from the vehicle.
Ten minutes later, the bomb exploded, so powerful that it killed six people some distance away, sent several cars careening into the river and destroyed 65 percent to 75 percent of the steel structure. Politicians, immediately sensitive to the impact of the bombing swiftly condemned it, eulogized the structure and promised to rebuild it.
Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, who was traveling in South Korea, released a statement describing the bridge as “one of the oldest and loveliest city bridges.”
In the Parliament attack, several lawmakers expressed bitterness at both the government and the Americans for failing to protect them and said that the attack must have been an inside job, carried out by someone who had security clearance and was able to avoid the multiple searches that most people undergo to enter the International Zone.
“This is a great blow to the government, which is always talking about security and how it is improving with the Americans, but it’s a great violation of their security plan,” said Ali al-Mayali, an injured Parliament member from the bloc allied with the militant Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr, as he sat outside the hospital holding gauze to his head to staunch the bleeding from a shrapnel injury.
“This is the International Zone, protected by the Americans. It’s a big violation that they reached the center of decision-making,” he said.
Another Sadr bloc parliamentarian, Asma al-Musawi, who hurried to the hospital to find injured colleagues, expressed similar dismay. But said he said the attack was also a reminder to legislators what life is like for their constituents who live with far less protection.
“We must expect this. It is worse outside in Baghdad so the violence will definitely, eventually reach into the International Zone,” she said. “If you are unable to protect your people, eventually you will be unable to protect yourself.”
She added, “But this is an alarm for the government, for security inside the International Zone, for the coalition forces, for the people leading Iraq.”
President Bush and Maj. Gen. William Caldwell, IV, the chief military spokesman in Iraq, condemned the bombing. “We in the multinational force Iraq condemn these attacks. These are clearly attacks on Iraqi institutions,” General Caldwell said. “We try to build hope and they are trying to instill fear. But we remain committed to the Iraqi people.”
The bomb exploded less than half an hour after the Parliament had recessed for the day. Because it was Thursday afternoon and Friday is typically a day off, many people had already left when the bomber detonated his vest. But a handful of legislators were eating lunch in the cafe area, and one Shiite member of Parliament, an imam, Jalaluddin al-Sagheer was giving an interview on television. When the explosion happened, he ducked and was engulfed in a cloud of smoke and dust.
The glass tables that fill the cafe area shattered, becoming dangerous shards that left people bleeding from numerous small wounds, Mr. Mayali said.
The Parliament building itself has its own security arrangements and the security detail is not managed by either the American military or by the Iraqi Ministry of Police or Ministry of Defense, said Mr. Rubaie, the security adviser to Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki.
“We need to work out new measures,” Mr. Rubaie said. “We advised the Parliament that no visitors should go into the building and secondly that they should give us responsibility for the force protection and we would be in charge, but they didn’t want it.”
He added that three weeks ago he had insisted on a top-to-bottom check of the entire Parliament building and that his security staff had found 19 pistols that were unaccounted for. The search “was a very unpopular move; the Parliament didn’t like it,” he said.
Several members of Parliament said that lawmakers’ guards were often able to bully their way through checkpoints without being searched and that some carried high-level badges that made them and their vehicles exempt from being examined when the entered the International Zone.
“No one can bring bombs into this zone or this building except the lawmakers and their guards, and some of the lawmakers’ convoys are not searched,” said Wail Abdul Latif, a Parliament member from the secular Iraqiya bloc led by former interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi. “Some of the lawmakers’ guards make trouble at the checkpoints, some of them refused to be searched. They are not very professional.”
He added that he wanted the American military to take over securing the Parliament as they had before the new government was put in place.
After emerging from the hospital, Mr. Rubaie, a man who usually exudes confidence, seemed a little shaken — by the bridge bombing earlier in the day as well as the Parliament bombing. “These are historic things. This is what the terrorists want to do to us,” he said.
“What happened today, the Parliament, the bridge, the Mutanabi street book market, these are places very dear to the hearts of Baghdadis, of Iraqis,” he said, referring as well to a bombing a few weeks ago at the city’s historic Mutanabi Street book market.
“These places are very dear, way dear to us. This is what they want to destroy.”
Reporting was contributed by Ahmad Fadam, Qais Mizher, Khalid Ansary and Edward Wong.
Suicide Bomber at Parliament Kills 8 Iraqis
By ALISSA J. RUBIN
BAGHDAD, April 12 — A suicide bomber wearing an explosive vest struck deep inside the heavily fortified International Zone on Thursday, killing eight people when he detonated inside the Parliament building just a few feet from the main chamber.
In a separate and in some ways equally traumatic attack early in the day, a truck bomb destroyed the beloved, 60-year-old Sarafiya bridge across the Tigris and killed six people. The heavily traveled bridge has long been a symbol of Baghdad, illustrated on old postcards and drawings of the city from a more peaceful time.
The attack on the Parliament was the worst bombing to take place in the International Zone since the protected area was established four years ago, when it was known as the Green Zone. At a time when Iraqis are increasingly questioning the government’s ability to protect them, the bombing raised the troubling possibility that it cannot even fully protect itself, although it is at the wellspring of American and Iraqi military power in the city.
The bomber struck a half hour after the day’s session had closed, in a cafe area where lawmakers were lingering across from the main chamber. Among the dead were at least two lawmakers, both from Sunni Arab parties. Of the 23 people wounded, 11 were parliamentarians, the United States military reported.
“This is a cowardly act and this proves that terrorism is indiscriminate. Sunnis, Shia, Kurds have been injured and maimed and killed in this attack. This should be a reminder that all Iraqis are targeted,” said Deputy Prime Minister Barham Saleh, after visiting the wounded at the Ibn Sina hospital, which is run by the United States military.
Mr. Saleh and Mowaffak al-Rubaie, the Iraqi national security adviser, who was also visiting the wounded, said the attack was a major security breach in the International Zone. Regulations there require visitors to undergo multiple layers of screening by an array of Iraqi forces, foreign contractors and American soldiers.
The image of the International Zone as an impregnable fortress had already been on the wane. Regular rocket and mortar attacks on the United States Embassy compound have killed a civilian and a soldier and wounded several others in recent weeks. And senior military officials said two suicide vests were found in a garbage bin in the Green Zone about two weeks ago.
Accordingly, news of the Parliament attack came less as a shock to Iraqis than as further evidence of the government’s impotence, even in the midst of a major security push in the city.
“I am not surprised this happened at the Parliament,” said Waqas al-Ubaidi, 30, who was standing outside the hospital waiting for news of his uncle, a member of Parliament, Salman al-Jumaili. “The coming days will be worse, every day is worse.”
But the attack was a heavy blow on a day when Baghdad residents had already been horrified by news of the bridge bombing, a demoralizing strike that stole one of the few remaining reminders of better days in the capital.
The bomber drove a tanker truck loaded with explosives onto the bridge at 7 a.m. and brought it to a halt midway, according to American military officials and witnesses. The driver examined the truck’s underside and then disappeared. With the truck blocking traffic, motorists stopped a police patrol crossing the bridge and asked them to do something about it.
Immediately suspicious, the police moved cars and people off the bridge and radioed to the patrols on the opposite side to stop people from starting across. One witness, a tractor driver, described a policeman opening the passenger door of the truck and seeing a mass of wires and batteries and running away from the vehicle.
Ten minutes later, the bomb exploded, so powerful that it killed six people some distance away, sent several cars careening into the river and destroyed 65 percent to 75 percent of the steel structure. Politicians, immediately sensitive to the impact of the bombing swiftly condemned it, eulogized the structure and promised to rebuild it.
Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, who was traveling in South Korea, released a statement describing the bridge as “one of the oldest and loveliest city bridges.”
In the Parliament attack, several lawmakers expressed bitterness at both the government and the Americans for failing to protect them and said that the attack must have been an inside job, carried out by someone who had security clearance and was able to avoid the multiple searches that most people undergo to enter the International Zone.
“This is a great blow to the government, which is always talking about security and how it is improving with the Americans, but it’s a great violation of their security plan,” said Ali al-Mayali, an injured Parliament member from the bloc allied with the militant Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr, as he sat outside the hospital holding gauze to his head to staunch the bleeding from a shrapnel injury.
“This is the International Zone, protected by the Americans. It’s a big violation that they reached the center of decision-making,” he said.
Another Sadr bloc parliamentarian, Asma al-Musawi, who hurried to the hospital to find injured colleagues, expressed similar dismay. But said he said the attack was also a reminder to legislators what life is like for their constituents who live with far less protection.
“We must expect this. It is worse outside in Baghdad so the violence will definitely, eventually reach into the International Zone,” she said. “If you are unable to protect your people, eventually you will be unable to protect yourself.”
She added, “But this is an alarm for the government, for security inside the International Zone, for the coalition forces, for the people leading Iraq.”
President Bush and Maj. Gen. William Caldwell, IV, the chief military spokesman in Iraq, condemned the bombing. “We in the multinational force Iraq condemn these attacks. These are clearly attacks on Iraqi institutions,” General Caldwell said. “We try to build hope and they are trying to instill fear. But we remain committed to the Iraqi people.”
The bomb exploded less than half an hour after the Parliament had recessed for the day. Because it was Thursday afternoon and Friday is typically a day off, many people had already left when the bomber detonated his vest. But a handful of legislators were eating lunch in the cafe area, and one Shiite member of Parliament, an imam, Jalaluddin al-Sagheer was giving an interview on television. When the explosion happened, he ducked and was engulfed in a cloud of smoke and dust.
The glass tables that fill the cafe area shattered, becoming dangerous shards that left people bleeding from numerous small wounds, Mr. Mayali said.
The Parliament building itself has its own security arrangements and the security detail is not managed by either the American military or by the Iraqi Ministry of Police or Ministry of Defense, said Mr. Rubaie, the security adviser to Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki.
“We need to work out new measures,” Mr. Rubaie said. “We advised the Parliament that no visitors should go into the building and secondly that they should give us responsibility for the force protection and we would be in charge, but they didn’t want it.”
He added that three weeks ago he had insisted on a top-to-bottom check of the entire Parliament building and that his security staff had found 19 pistols that were unaccounted for. The search “was a very unpopular move; the Parliament didn’t like it,” he said.
Several members of Parliament said that lawmakers’ guards were often able to bully their way through checkpoints without being searched and that some carried high-level badges that made them and their vehicles exempt from being examined when the entered the International Zone.
“No one can bring bombs into this zone or this building except the lawmakers and their guards, and some of the lawmakers’ convoys are not searched,” said Wail Abdul Latif, a Parliament member from the secular Iraqiya bloc led by former interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi. “Some of the lawmakers’ guards make trouble at the checkpoints, some of them refused to be searched. They are not very professional.”
He added that he wanted the American military to take over securing the Parliament as they had before the new government was put in place.
After emerging from the hospital, Mr. Rubaie, a man who usually exudes confidence, seemed a little shaken — by the bridge bombing earlier in the day as well as the Parliament bombing. “These are historic things. This is what the terrorists want to do to us,” he said.
“What happened today, the Parliament, the bridge, the Mutanabi street book market, these are places very dear to the hearts of Baghdadis, of Iraqis,” he said, referring as well to a bombing a few weeks ago at the city’s historic Mutanabi Street book market.
“These places are very dear, way dear to us. This is what they want to destroy.”
Reporting was contributed by Ahmad Fadam, Qais Mizher, Khalid Ansary and Edward Wong.