Baghdad Hotel Destroyed

oh no
i heard it here first now im running to cnn.com

 

iraqi police said "several dead"

sounds like a "chunk" of the hotel was destroyed instead of the whole hotel being leveled. sounds like its too early to tell the amount of destruction and lives lost.

 

ABC just said 5 to 6 building were destroyed. (I think, I caught the end of what they were saying.)

 

Powerful blast shatters Baghdad hotel
At least 27 dead, dozens wounded

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- A powerful explosion, apparently from a car bomb, went off in central Baghdad on Wednesday, killing 27 people and wounding 40, according to senior U.S. military officials.

The blast virtually destroying the Mount Lebanon Hotel and damaging a number of houses and offices nearby.

Senior U.S. military officials at the scene said 27 people were killed and another 40 wounded.

"It's a scene from hell here," CNN Baghdad Bureau Chief Jane Arraf said.

"People are crying and screaming and debris is everywhere," Arraf said.

The blast rocked the area about 8:10 p.m. (12:10 p.m. EST), leaving a large crater in front of where the hotel had stood.

An hour after the blast, smoke continued to billow into the sky as ambulances rushed away with casualties. Rescuers searched amid burning timbers and crumpled brick for survivors.

"I heard the explosion and I ran down the street, and saw many, many people killed. There were children dead," Raad Abdul Karim, 30, told Reuters. "They are ordinary families. I don't know why this happened."

Iraqi police and coalition soldiers cordoned off the area. U.S. soldiers from the nearby "Green Zone" attempted to go into the area to rescue victims but were driven back by angry Iraqis.

U.S. soldiers were shouting to people to get back, because of concerns that there could be additional explosives.

The explosion occurred near Firdos Square, where the large statue of Saddam Hussein was pulled down in early April.

The location, in a busy area of the city, has been the scene of attacks in the past.

The unfortified, unprotected hotel is a residence hotel that often houses business people.

The blast scene is also close to the Palestine Hotel, where many foreign journalists stay.

Members of Iraq's Sunni, Shiite and Kurdish communities live in the area.

Adnan Pachachi, a member of the Iraqi Governing Council, said he is appalled and distressed, adding "I don't know the purpose of this outrage or what's the aim."

"Whenever they find a soft target with a lot of people they want to maximize the losses, especially fatalities."

"There is no absolute defense" against this kind of bombing, he said.

The attack comes as coalition forces began Operation Iron Promise, a citywide sweep for insurgents almost one year after the war started.

Blast follows recent attacks
Three U.S. soldiers and two Iraqi children were wounded Wednesday by an improvised explosive device in south-central Baghdad, a military source told CNN.

The children and a soldier were evacuated to combat hospital, where they were treated for shrapnel injuries. Two other soldiers have returned to duty.

A mortar attack Tuesday night killed a child and wounded eight, believed to have been playing in Baghdad's Adhamiya neighborhood, an Iraqi official said Wednesday.

Deputy Interior Minister Gen. Ahmed Kadhim said the mortar hit a building that had been a Baath party office, and is now used by an unidentified political party.

Also Tuesday, a rocket struck the grounds of a secondary school in Baghdad's Al-Karkh region, killing one person and wounding four, Iraqi police said.

Baghdad University students Wednesday attended the funeral of the assistant dean of the school of engineering. They told CNN's Jane Arraf that Marwan al-Hiti was shot and killed near his home Tuesday night.

A 3rd Armored Cavalry soldier died Wednesday when he was traveling in a convoy in Iraq en route to Kuwait for redeployment, U.S. Central Command said.

The soldier was injured badly when a passing vehicle struck his tank and was evacuated to a combat support hospital, where he was pronounced dead on arrival.

Iraqi leaders seek U.N. advisers
Iraqi leaders have reached an understanding with the United Nations, asking for advisers to help them put together an interim government before the June 30 political handover, a British diplomat said Wednesday.

British Ambassador to the U.N. Emyr Jones Parry said the Iraqi Governing Council is planning to bring back U.N. experts to help devise the government that will get power in a handover.

A U.N. electoral team recently was in Iraq to explore the feasibility of direct elections for a transitional assembly before the June deadline that would choose a government to be in charge at the time of the handover.

The team concluded that such elections were not logistically possible and the council started thinking about the shape of a caretaker government for the sovereignty period. One idea is expanding the 25-member council and extending its authority through the year.

The United Nations removed its international staff from Iraq after its Baghdad headquarters was attacked in August.

 

By the way, what does this mean....

"Iraqi police and coalition soldiers cordoned off the area. U.S. soldiers from the nearby "Green Zone" attempted to go into the area to rescue victims but were driven back by angry Iraqis."

 

more explosions today. This is all I've seen so far.



------------------------------

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Several explosions rocked the area housing the U.S.-led coalition headquarters on Friday night. Sirens wailed briefly.

A U.S. military official said on condition of anonymity that the explosions were inside the protected area, which is called the Green Zone. Rebels periodically target the zone with mortars and rockets.

There were no immediate reports of casualties.

 

March 20, 2004, 11:26AM



Some Iraqis say they feel more insecure after war
Associated Press

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- As the Bush administration touted accomplishments in Iraq, some Iraqis said tdoay they feel more insecure as attacks persist a year after the United States launched military strikes to oust Saddam Hussein.

Insurgents fired four mortar rounds at the offices of a Kurdish political party in the northern city of Mosul today, but missed and killed a driver on a nearby street, Iraqi police Maj. Dara Abdelalah said. Guards then fired at the rebels and three party members and a passer-by were wounded in the shootout, he said.

Today, the U.S. Army said a 1st Infantry Division soldier was fatally electrocuted while working on communication equipment at an American military base in Baqouba, north of Baghdad. An investigation was under way.

The Army also reported that a U.S. military helicopter was shot down Friday by rebels near the town of Amariya, an area where insurgents are active west of Baghdad. The two crewmen escaped injury and the helicopter was recovered, said Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, deputy director of U.S. military operations.

While much of Iraq is relatively quiet, rebel attacks on coalition forces and horrific bombings of civilians have plagued the capital and Sunni areas to the north and west, where support for Saddam was strongest when he was in power. Suicide bombers have also targeted Kurds in the north and the Shiite city of Karbala, south of Baghdad.

"There has been a spike in attacks on coalition forces and soft targets," Secretary of State Colin Powell acknowledged Friday at a news conference in Baghdad during a surprise, one-day visit. "We have to shift as the enemy shifts. They move from harder targets to softer targets."

Bush marked the anniversary of the beginning of the war in a speech Friday at the White House, declaring that the fall of Saddam removed a source of violence, aggression and instability in the Middle East.

"There are still violent thugs and murderers in Iraq, and we're dealing with them," Bush said. "But no one can argue that the Iraqi people would be better off with the thugs and murderers back in the palaces."

Some Baghdad residents, however, said Iraqis were more insecure than they were before Bush ordered military strikes on March 19, 2003. The anniversary falls on March 20 in Iraq, because of the time difference.

"The security situation is worse than one year ago. I cannot take my family outside at nights. When I walk in the street, I do not know when a bomb is going to explode and kill me. We were better secured during Saddam's time," said Ammar Samir, 26, who works for a private trading company. "The Americans have failed to provide security and prosperity to the Iraqi people."

Another resident, Saad al-Nuaimi, said the speech was a ploy to attract voters ahead of the November presidential election, in which Iraq policy is likely to be high on the agenda. Al-Nuaimi said Washington had "fabricated lies" claiming that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, though none have been found.

Bush made his decision to go to war despite widespread international opposition.

Thousands of protesters marched in Sydney, Tokyo and other Asian cities to mark the first anniversary of the invasion by demanding the withdrawal of U.S.-led troops from Iraq.

"Bush's invasion of Iraq has incited more terrorism. It caused terrible suffering not only to the Iraqi people, but everyone in the world," protest organizer and pro-democracy activist Lau San-ching said in Hong Kong.

Shortly before Bush made his speech, the top administrator in Iraq, L. Paul Bremer, noted ways the coalition had improved the lives of Iraqis over the past year: the electricity supply was back to prewar levels and climbing, unemployment was down and per capita income had risen by 33 percent this year.

"I arrived here in early May and Baghdad was on fire, literally," Bremer said at a briefing.

"There were no private cars, there was not a single policeman on duty anywhere in the country. There was no electricity in most of the country. There was no economic activity whatsoever, there was no stores open anywhere in Baghdad," he said.

"So when I look at how far we have come in 10 months now, it's an astonishing record," Bremer said.

He said the coalition had completed thousands of projects such as generator installations and school refurbishment but admitted that attacks were interfering with big, capital-intensive projects because firms have to spend more on security.

The political process has advanced, with the U.S.-appointed Governing Council signing an interim constitution ahead of the handover of power to Iraqis on June 30. But many details of Iraq's political transition have yet to be mapped out, and there are fears that sectarian divisions could disrupt the process