Suicide Bomber at Parliament Kills 8 Iraqis

[Yoshie Furuhashi <critical.montages@xxxxxxxxx>]

<http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/12/world/middleeast/12cnd-iraq.html>
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.
--
Yoshie