Suicide car bomber kills 13 in Baghdad

The Guardian (GB)
Simon Jeffery and agencies
Monday December 13, 2004


An Iraqi man mourns after a suicide car bomber kills at least 13 people at the entrance to the heavily fortified Green Zone in Baghdad. Photograph: Ali Al-Saadi/AFP/Getty Images


A suicide car bomber killed at least 13 people in Baghdad today, as Iraq's interim president cited the decision to disband Saddam's army and key ministries as a contributing factor to the violence over the last 18 months.

The explosion took place at the entrance to the Green Zone, the vast fortified complex that houses in the interim Iraqi government and the British and US embassies.

"We had stopped in the car when all we felt was a car explode next to us," one injured Iraqi civilian at the city's Yarmuk hospital told Reuters.

Ghazi al-Yawar, who became interim president in June, told the BBC that Washington and London had made "a big mistake" in the first months of the occupation.

He said that the US-led administration should have screened out individuals from the former regime who were implicated in abuses rather than dismissing people wholesale.

"Dissolving the ministry of defence and ministry of the interior was a big mistake at that time," he told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme.

"We could have screened people out, instead of screening people in and this could have saved us a lot of hassle and a lot of problems."

Efforts by US-led forces to establish a new Iraqi police service and army have so far failed to create a security structure capable of maintaining order in the country.