Iraqi Governing Council member dies; blast in Baghdad hotel housing US press
BAGHDAD (AFP) - Iraqi female Governing Council member Akila al-Hashimi died from wounds sustained in an earlier assassination bid, as a bomb blast at a central Baghdad hotel housing US television staff killed a maintenance worker.
And in the northern city of Mosul, witnesses said a US military vehicle was hit with an explosion, leaving at least four American soldiers badly wounded.
The latest bloodshed overshadowed heightened diplomatic efforts at the United Nations (news - web sites) to seek a common stance on rebuilding post-war Iraq (news - web sites), which has been crippled by one deadly bomb blast after the other.
Hashimi was ambushed by gunmen who lobbed a bomb and sprayed her two-car convoy with machine-gun fire Saturday in the first such attack on an Iraqi official of the US-installed administration.
She underwent two stomach operations and was taken to a US medical facility, but her condition had gradually deteriorated.
"Today the people of Iraq have lost a champion and pioneer of freedom and democracy," US civilian administrator Paul Bremer said in a statement.
Thursday's bomb blast at a hotel housing staff from the US television network NBC killed a Somali maintenance worker in what Iraqi police said was the first such attack aimed at foreign journalists.
Witnesses said two other people, including an NBC soundman, were wounded by the explosive device placed by a generator on the sidewalk outside the Aike hotel, on the corner of al-Hindi street, a main thoroughfare in the capital.
Soundman David Moodie, 44, a Canadian, had a cut on his arm from the blast, and said no other staffer of the network was hurt.
The bombing was the third in a week in Baghdad following Monday's second attack on the UN headquarters, which killed an Iraqi securityman, and a roadside bomb Wednesday that hit a commuter bus, killing an Iraqi civilian.
In Mosul, about 10 witnesses reported seeing the bodies of four US soldiers after their military vehicle was hit with an explosion then ambushed.
But there was no confirmation of their deaths on a main road in front of the telecommunications center and the US military said it had no report of the blast.
On Wednesday, US troops were blamed for two incidents of violence in which two Iraqis were killed and at least three injured.
Meanwhile, US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said the nation-building effort in Iraq is on track to becoming "a model for a successful transition from tyranny to democracy."
Rumsfeld predicted that the much maligned post-war plan for Iraq would turn out as well as the April war that toppled Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein (news - web sites), which at the start seemed a failure.
"It will take longer than 21 days, but I believe that the plan to win the peace in Iraq will succeed -- just as the plan to win the war succeeded," he said in a letter published in The Washington Post.
But as an already fragile Iraqi security situation continued to deteriorate, France, Germany and Russia, promised a "constructive" approach to US efforts to enlist international help to rebuild the war-ravaged country.
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Leaders of the three countries spearheaded opposition to the war on Iraq, which US President George W. Bush (news - web sites) had defended before a sceptical audience of world leaders at the United Nations on Tuesday.
Franch President Jacques Chirac acknowledged common ground on how to approach the question of a US resolution that seeks a UN mandate for multinational troops in Iraq.
"Naturally we talked about the preparation of the resolution on Iraq which is due soon at the Security Council," he said. "We have concluded that we would like to go about this preparation in a positive and constructive spirit."
German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, who met with Bush Wednesday, ending their year-long rift, later said his country's support for a US-backed resolution was not a given, and Berlin may abstain if its conditions are not met.
A chief foreign policy advisor to Russian President Vladimir Putin (news - web sites) stressed that the three nations were not seeking to counter the United States.
"These contacts are in no way directed against those leaders who have not been invited" to the three-way talks, Sergei Prikhodko said.
Viewing the moves as the start of a thaw between the trio and Washington over the war, diplomats nonetheless said they were waiting to see tangible support for a US-backed Security Council resolution.
China, another Security Council permanent member with power of veto, meanwhile, called on the United Nations to play a greater role in Iraq.
Meanwhile the vexed question of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction continued to haunt coalition leaders, as the BBC reported that US and British arms inspectors will report next month that none have been found.
The Iraq Survey Group, a 1,400-strong Anglo-American team, will report that not even "minute" amounts of nuclear, chemical or biological weapons material have been unearthed, BBC television said, quoting an unnamed US government source.
In the United States, the Central Intelligence Agency (news - web sites) said an interim report by former weapons inspector David Kay was not expected to reach any firm conclusions or rule anything in or out.
Australian Prime Minister John Howard, whose country supported the war, said he still believes evidence will emerge of a WMD programme in Iraq.
Iraq's refusal to give up its alleged weapons of mass destruction was cited by London and Washington as a main reason for going to war on Saddam Hussein's regime in March.
Also in London, the inquiry into the suicide of government scientist David Kelly, at the centre of claims that Britain embellished its case for war, wraps up Thursday after 22 days of testimony from 74 witnesses, including British Prime Minister Tony Blair (news - web sites) and Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon.
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