Senior U.S. Officer Is Killed in Rocket Barrage at Baghdad Hotel
By THOM SHANKER and RAYMOND BONNER
THE NEW YORK TIMES
Published: October 26, 2003
nytimes.com
BAGHDAD, Iraq, Oct. 26 — A senior American military officer was killed and more than a dozen other individuals were wounded early this morning when a barrage of air-to-ground missiles slammed into a hotel inside one of the most secure compounds in Baghdad, where most of the personnel who are part of the American-led occupation here live and eat. Balconies were blasted off of two rooms, and windows were blown out in the Rashid Hotel.
Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz, the intellectual architect of the war against Iraq, who arrived here Friday for a quick look, had spent the night in the hotel, and was one floor above where one of the rockets hit, officials said. He was not injured.
Five other American soldiers were injured, as were seven American civilians working in various Iraqi ministries as part of the American-led effort to rebuild Iraq, officials said. Four non-American civilians were also injured.
The attack, which officials suggested had probably been carried out by men loyal to Saddam Hussein, had been carefully planned, perhaps over two months, and had involved some surveillance and rehearsal, American military officials said.
The missiles were launched from an improvised multirocket launching platform, a home-made version of the Katyusha system used by the Russians. The Irish Republican Army has used similar systems for attacks in the United Kingdom.
The launcher was secreted inside a blue trailer that was made to look like a generator, a ubiquitous item in Baghdad, where electrical service is unreliable. In the quiet of early morning, a white passenger vehicle towed the trailer down a major street, that runs between the hotel and a large park on the other side of it. It was then unhitched at a cloverleaf — which has been closed by the Americans for security reasons — the car pulled away, and soon there after, at 6:08, 8 to 10 missiles thudded into the hotel, about 450 yards away, officials said.
The casualties could have been higher; 11 missiles failed to fire, either because of electrical or mechanical failure. And the trailer had been booby-trapped, with explosives in the wheel base, which American soldiers disarmed when they arrived.
Altogether the launcher held 40 missile pods, said Brig. Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, commander of the First Armored Division, whose responsibility is the security of Baghdad. He was speaking at a news conference this evening, held in a building in the compound near the Rashid Hotel.
Half the missiles were 68 millimeter, which have a range of two to three miles; the others were 85 millimeter, whose range is three to four miles, he said. The smaller ones were French made, and designed for use by helicopters. The others were Russian. The French rockets, officers said, were quite new, and likely purchased after the arms embargo was in place.
"They were in pristine condition," said one military officer who inspected the rocket tubes and assembly.
Saddam Hussein had weapons of this type in his arsenal, but General Dempsey said he did not know the origins of these missiles.
General Dempsey described the device as "clever, but not sophisticated."
"It's a science project in a garage with a welder and a battery and a handful of wires," he said.
That such an unsophisticated device can be used against one of the most fortified and well-guarded sites in Baghdad raises questions about the military's ability to secure any major site in Baghdad. The compound is surrounded by high, concrete walls. The missiles were fired over them.
General Dempsey was asked whether it didn't appear that whatever security the Americans adopted or erected, the terrorists were finding ways over and around them. How could anyone in Baghdad feel safe given today's attack, which is the latest in a steady string of increasingly more sophisticated attacks, he was asked.
"Those working the hardest for the Iraqi people are less safe," he answered. If you work with the coalition, trying to rebuild Iraq, "you will be targeted."
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He said he was convinced that the attack was linked to the opening of the 14th of July Bridge on Saturday — the trailer was parked on the road leading to the bridge — and to the easing of the curfew in Bagdhad, which was lifted by the authorities for Ramadan. Every move to return Baghdad to some level of normality was met by terrorist actions by those who do not want the coalition to succeed, he said.
After a decline in attacks on the coalition forces in July and August, they have increased dramatically in the last two months.
Nevertheless, General Dempsey said he was "absolutely" convinced that the security situation here had improved.
No one claimed responsibility for today's attacks, but General Dempsey said it was probably people who would like to see a return to power of Saddam Hussein, or at least the Baath Party.
A lot of people with ordnance skills and money are behind the attacks, he said.
"We have a very good idea of who's attacking us in Baghdad," he said. He said the information came from men who had been captured in the process of preparing attacks and from information provided by Iraqi citizens.
He did not provide details, but he largely ruled out foreign terrorists.
"We have not seen any infusion of foreign fighters in Baghdad," he said.
His assertion was somewhat at odds with what the chief civilian administrator in Baghdad, L. Paul Bremer III, said today. Appearing on the CBS News program "Face the Nation," Mr. Bremer said there continued to be infiltration from Syria, or Syrians, Sudanese and Yeminis.
These terrorists, as well as common criminals and former regime loyalists were behind the increasingly more sophisticated attacks, he said.
At a hastily arranged, midmorning news briefing, a defiant Mr. Wolfowitz declared that the attack would not deter the American-led effort to rebuild Iraq. He hailed the American civilians and military personnel working in Baghdad as heroes struggling to halt those he described as "criminals who are trying to destabilize this country" and who "have abused and tortured Iraq for 35 years."
A New York Times reporter traveling with Mr. Wolfowitz was a few rooms from where one of the rockets hit. Looking across the street, he saw the trailer from which the rockets had been fired, and saw one projectile coming at the hotel, trailing sparks.
On the 11th floor, where correspondents traveling with the Wolfowitz delegation were staying, one rocket mortally injured its occupant. A broken pipe spilled water ankle deep into the corridor, as the hallway filled with smoke and occupants called for medical help for the wounded man.
On a lower floor, one projectile punched a fist-sized hole in the window, wrecking the walls, shattering furniture and injuring at least one of the two occupants. The hotel's occupants were evacuated down an emergency inner stairwell, stepping over trails of blood left by the wounded. |
