- BAGHDAD (Reuters) -- A suicide
car bomber killed 35 people at an Iraqi military base in Baghdad Thursday
as guerrillas intensified a bloody campaign to sabotage plans for U.S.-led
occupation to give way to Iraqi rule on June 30.
-
- The blast outside an army recruiting center on a busy
road also wounded 138 people, Iraq's health minister told Reuters.
-
- Colonel Mike Murray of the U.S. 1st Cavalry Division
said the bomber had blown up a white four-wheel-drive vehicle at the center
near Muthanna airport, where U.S. troops are based.
-
- Passersby and would-be army recruits took the brunt of
the blast, the deadliest single attack in Iraq since a suicide bomber killed
47 people on the same spot in February.
-
- Five foreign contractors and eight Iraqis died in another
suicide bombing in the heart of Baghdad Monday.
-
- Iraqis hoping to join the fledgling army were waiting
for recruiting officers to call their names when Thursday's bomb exploded
and hot shrapnel scythed through the crowd.
-
- "I heard my salary would be 600,000 dinars (about
$430) a month. I needed a job," said Ibrahim Ismail, who had been
trying to sign up, from his hospital bed.
-
- "Then suddenly there was huge explosion. Ten or
15 others were on top of me on the street. I can't go back. No way."
-
- Some volunteers said they would still try to join the
army because of dire economic hardship.
-
- Guerrillas have mounted a lethal drive to undermine Iraq's
new interim government ahead of the June 30 handover.
-
- "This was a cowardly attack. It is a demonstration
again that these attacks are aimed at the stability of Iraq and the Iraqi
people," Prime Minister Iyad Allawi said at the scene.
-
- The insurgents, thought to include Baathists loyal to
Saddam Hussein, Iraqi nationalists and foreign militants, have targeted
the oil industry, government officials and security forces in the runup
to the formal transfer of power.
-
- Oil exports, Iraq's economic lifeblood, remained paralyzed
Thursday, and engineers said oil wells were being shut down while pipelines
blown up in the south and north were repaired.
-
- BUSH UNDER FIRE
-
- President Bush, whose administration is under fire for
its Iraq policies, said Tuesday the United States was "bringing back
a 5,000-year-old civilization" in Iraq.
-
- But retired U.S. diplomats and military officers said
he had led the United States into an ill-planned war that had weakened
U.S. security, directly challenging one of Bush's main arguments for re-election
in November.
-
- The U.S. military said a third soldier had died after
a rocket attack on a base north of Baghdad Wednesday. A Hungarian soldier
was killed Thursday when an explosion hit their convoy, officials in Hungary
said.
-
- A civilian driver, also Hungarian, was wounded by flying
shards of glass.
-
- Since the U.S.-led invasion to oust Saddam last year,
at least 612 U.S. soldiers have been killed in action in Iraq.
-
- "We all believe that current administration policies
have failed in the primary responsibilities of preserving national security
and providing world leadership," a statement signed by 27 retired
U.S. officials said. "We need a change."
-
- The group includes Republicans and Democrats, a former
CIA director, two former ambassadors to the Soviet Union and a retired
chairman of the military Joint Chiefs of Staff.
-
- Bush's "overbearing" approach to foreign policy
has relied too much on military power, spurned the concerns of U.S. allies
and disdained the United Nations, the group said.
-
- Secretary of State Colin Powell rejected the idea the
Iraq war had isolated the United States. "If this is a political statement...and
this is their point of view, I disagree," he said.
-
- A scandal over abuses at U.S.-run prisons in Iraq has
severely damaged Washington's image in the country.
-
- The Pentagon acknowledged Thursday the military had been
improperly holding a suspected Iraqi "terrorist" in a prison
near Baghdad for more than seven months without informing the International
Committee of the Red Cross.
-
- Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld ordered military officials
to hold the suspected member of the Ansar al-Islam group last November
at the request of then-CIA Director George Tenet without telling the ICRC,
officials said.
-
- Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said the United States
was now moving to end the shadowy status of the man, who was not identified,
and give the ICRC access to him.
-
- In March, Major General Antonio Taguba, the U.S. Army
officer who investigated abuses at the Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad,
criticized the practice of holding "ghost detainees."
-
- Copyright © 2004 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved.
Republication or redistribution of Reuters content is expressly prohibited
without the prior written consent of Reuters. Reuters shall not be liable
for any errors or delays in the content, or for any actions taken in reliance
thereon.
-
- http://news.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=worldNews&storyID=5447830
|
