Opinion Editorials, October 2003, www.aljazeerah.info
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Anti-US Attacks Turn Bolder
Nayla Razzouk
Agence France Presse, Arab News
BAGHDAD, 27 October 2003 — The major strike yesterday on Baghdad’s Rashid Hotel housing visiting Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and other top US officials underlined the increasingly daring nature of deadly attacks which Iraqis blame on Washington’s failure to transfer power.
Speaking after Wolfowitz emerged unscathed when 29 rockets were fired at the towering landmark in central Baghdad, a top US Army officer said one person was killed and 15 others, including US Defense Department personnel, were wounded.
The attackers took advantage of an easing of security measures ahead of Ramadan to fire the rockets from multiple launchers hidden in a trailer disguised as generator.
Roaring in the pre-dawn darkness over a high wall erected to defend the heavily fortified coalition compound, an unknown number of the missiles of two different calibers smashed into the western facade of the Rashid.
Some 40 rockets, ignited by a timing device while the attackers fled, had been mounted in the ramps but 11 failed to fire, a coalition military officer told AFP.
Even Wolfowitz, an architect of the war that brought down the regime of Saddam Hussein in April, admitted the coalition could not guarantee full protection for targets such as the Rashid Hotel.
But he said the United States would be unrelenting in the pursuit of the “criminals who are trying to destabilize the country.”
The attacks came just over a couple of hours after the end of the nightly curfew, which was due to be lifted entirely from yesterday in time for Ramadan, and a day after the reopening of a key bridge leading to the compound.
Yesterday’s strike was undoubtedly the boldest at the heart of the US operation center in Baghdad, following a first attack on Sept. 27 by three homemade rockets that left only minor damage to the Rashid.
Most anti-coalition attacks target US troops in the so-called “Sunni triangle,” Saddam’s native region and stronghold, but on Saturday a British coalition soldier was wounded in the southern city of Basra.
On Saturday alone, 12 American troops were injured in separate attacks around the country that saw a Blackhawk helicopter crash and come under fire near Tikrit, where Wolfowitz was visiting troops.
Despite six months of aggressive raids to round up Saddam loyalists and Wolfowitz’s defiant pledge repeated yesterday to “take the fight to the enemy,” the rate of attacks has jumped to 20-25 per day from 13-15 during the summer.
The number of US soldiers killed in combat since major hostilities were declared over on May 1 had reached 108 before the rockets hit the Baghdad hotel.
But assaults have also targeted US-installed Iraqi interim Governing Council members, government members, religious leaders, the United Nations and pipelines in oil-rich regions.
Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the top US commander in Iraq, recently admitted the attackers “are demonstrating local coordination and synchronization.”
“These are destructive terrorist actions,” said Entifadh Qanbar, spokesman for leading Council member Ahmad Chalabi, head of the Iraqi National Congress (INC) and a longtime Pentagon favorite.
“The attacks are escalating, they are becoming bolder ... the solution is to hand over security matters and sovereignty to Iraqi hands, in a full and effective way,” he told AFP.
Qanbar said “the problem cannot be resolved by the US Army. They do not know the terrain and the security situation of Iraq as well as Iraqis. The former regime loyalists are very well organized and have all the necessary means.”
“Now, we have an Iraqi participation in security matters that are in the hands of the Americans, when it should be the opposite,” he said.
And key Council member Adnan Pachachi said Saturday that the Al-Qaeda terror network that claimed the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on New York and Washington, had moved its field of operations to Iraq because of the large US military presence there.
Amid coalition plans to start moving troops out of Baghdad by April, Governing Council members have blasted US troops for using excessive force against civilians and at last month’s UN General Assembly they called for a real power transfer.
Council members have also complained about not being consulted over rebuilding contracts, and expressed hope that funds secured from the Madrid donors conference this week would help improve security in the country.
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| Earth, a planet hungry for peace |
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| The Israeli apartheid (security) wall around Palestinian population centers (Ran Cohen, pmc, 5/24/03). |
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| The Israeli apartheid (security) wall around Palestinian population centers in the West Bank (Ran Cohen, pmc, 5/24/03). |
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