|
By Gregg Zoroya, USA TODAY
BAGHDAD � U.S. officials said Sunday that security in Iraq
is improving despite a brazen rocket attack in Baghdad that forced the
evacuation of a heavily guarded hotel where Deputy Defense Secretary Paul
Wolfowitz was staying and where many U.S. administrators live. (Video: From the scene)
Wolfowitz, in Iraq on a short visit, was unhurt but a U.S. colonel was killed and 18 others were injured in a sophisticated strike that U.S. officials said likely had been planned for several months. The slain colonel, who was not identified, is one of the highest-ranking American officers killed since President Bush declared an end to major combat in Iraq on May 1. "We certainly had a bad day," chief U.S. administrator for Iraq Paul Bremer said on ABC's This Week. The early morning attack followed the downing of a Black Hawk helicopter on Saturday after it was fired upon by guerillas using a rocket-propelled grenade. One soldier was injured. The attack on a high-profile American target in downtown Baghdad fits classic guerrilla tactics of trying to portray the enemy as vulnerable and jar the public's sense of security. Wolfowitz said the strike "will not deter us from completing our mission" in Iraq. Bremer and other senior U.S. military leaders insisted that despite the attack significant progress is being made to curb daily attacks on American soldiers. "I stand behind the assessment that security has improved," Brig. Gen Martin Dempsey, commander of the 1st Armored Division, said after the Al Rasheed attack. Late Sunday night two explosions were heard in an area of Baghdad that includes the Al Rasheed. There was no further information on the explosions. In the United States, the Al Rasheed attack fueled charges that the administration's plan to stabilize Iraq is failing. "The fact that the opposition ... fired rockets at the hotel where Paul Wolfowitz was and got away with it is just shocking," said presidential candidate Sen. Joe Lieberman, D-Conn., on CBS's Face The Nation. Dempsey said there was no evidence that Wolfowitz was the target of the attack, which took place just after 6 a.m. here and sent scores of U.S. officials fleeing from the hotel in pajamas and shorts. He said he believed the incident was timed to the reopening Saturday of a major bridge across the Tigris River and the lifting of a nighttime curfew in Baghdad as an effort to discredit U.S. efforts to improve living conditions in the capital. Dempsey acknowledged, however, that the attack's sophistication required "some reconnaissance and rehearsal." The hotel was hit by eight to 10 68mm and 85 mm rockets, which were fired from a makeshift rocket launcher placed in a park just 500 yards from the hotel. "It's a science project in a garage with a welder and a battery and a handful of wires," Dempsey said of the launcher. He said 11 missiles were still in the launcher when U.S. troops examined it. The trailer was booby-trapped with explosives and disguised to look like a portable generator. The device was towed by a white Chevrolet pickup. A police commander said the attacker or attackers drove away when security guards approached. Moments later the missiles fired, apparently triggered by a timer. Iraqi guards said they would have fired on the truck, but they were not armed. U.S. officials said the 462-room hotel would be evacuated indefinitely. Bremer, speaking on Face the Nation, said Sunday's attack shows a "more sophisticated use of technology" by Iraqi guerillas. Secretary of State Colin Powell said on NBC's Meet the Press the administration had not expected Iraqi postwar opposition to "be quite this intense this long." The 18 wounded included four U.S. military personnel, seven American civilians, five non-U.S. citizens and two Iraqi policemen, according to U.S. officials. The hotel also was attacked Sept. 27 with small rockets or rocket-propelled grenades. They caused minimal damage. Contributing: Bill Nichols in Washington and wire reports. The
Mulindwas Communication Group
"With Yoweri Museveni, Uganda is in anarchy" Groupe de communication Mulindwas "avec Yoweri Museveni, l'Ouganda est dans l'anarchie" | |||||||||
