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Iraq blast possible inside job Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
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U.N. Iraq Blast Possible 'Inside Job'
U.N. Iraq Bombing Could Have Been an 'Inside Job,' U.S. Security Official Says
The Associated Press
BAGHDAD, Iraq Aug. 22 —
U.S. investigators suspect the suicide truck bombing of the United Nations headquarters in Baghdad was an inside job and are questioning Iraqi employees and guards, many of whom were put into their positions with the world body by Saddam Hussein's security service, a top American official said Friday.
Bernard Kerik, the former New York police commissioner who is working to re-establish an Iraqi police force, said the placement of the truck bomb and the timing had raised suspicions. The truck was placed as near as it could have been to the office of Sergio Vieira de Mello, the top U.N. envoy and one of 23 people killed in the attack. The bomb went off as a high-level official meeting was in progress in the office.
"Would the security guards have access to that information? Would the people who work in that building for any other reason have access to it? How were the schedules distributed? They're very basic parts of an investigation, and they're non-accusatory," Kerik told The Associated Press.
Kerik said some of the Iraqi personnel at the U.N. compound initially refused to cooperate with authorities and were being interrogated.
"There are concerns about some of the people who were working there," he said "It's all under investigation at this point."
He said the United Nations was responsible for its own security guards and he was not sure if the organization had a procedure to screen people who had worked for the former regime.
Most of the U.N. security guards at the compound had been placed there by the Saddam security service before the war and reported on U.N. staff movements at the Canal Hotel, headquarters for U.N. inspectors looking for weapons of mass destruction.
Kerik warned other non-governmental agencies to make sure their security staffs were clear of ties to the former regime.
"They were some of the most treacherous, and if we still have them running around in a capacity where they will have access to important information then that is something we have to be concerned with," Kerik said.
The top U.S. civil administrator in Iraq, L. Paul Bremer, attended a short ceremony at Baghdad International Airport Friday, in which the body of Vieira de Mello was carried onto a Brazilian Air Force plane bound for Geneva.
Also Friday, the U.S. military announced the deaths of two soldiers. One serviceman was killed in action on Thursday in Hilla, 55 kilometers (35 miles) south of Baghdad, said Spc. Margo Doers. The other died in a fire at a shooting range. The military did not say what caused the fire.
Emergency workers continued their search for human remains in the rubble of the bombed headquarters, as 86 seriously wounded U.N. workers w were being airlifted out of Iraq for medical care abroad.
Kerik said he believed the blast was a suicide bombing.
"We know that an operator drove the vehicle down the driveway, pulled alongside the wall and the vehicle was detonated," he said.
While Kerik said it was too early to say who was responsible for the blast, he said he was positive it was not planned personally by Saddam, who is still at large.
"This is absolutely in my opinion not coming from Saddam, this guy is traveling all around the country, probably in about three or four different locations a day, I am confident he does not have the time to sit around and plan these resistance attacks," he said.
Thursday's deaths brought the number of U.S. combat deaths in Iraq to 179, 32 more than in the first Gulf War. Sixty-five U.S. soldiers have been killed since U.S. President George W. Bush declared an end to formal combat on May 1 this year.
Six U.S. soldiers were wounded Friday when their 5-ton truck ran over a roadside bomb on the outskirts of Baiji, about 210 kilometers (125 miles) north of Baghdad, 4th Infantry Division spokeswoman Maj. Josslyn Aberle said.
The victims were evacuated in a helicopter to an Army field hospital north of Tikrit, where one was in critical condition and awaiting surgery, she said. The others were in stable condition, she added.
U.S. troops shot and killed one Iraqi who opened fire with an AK-47 rifle at a patrol early Friday, she said. It was unclear where the shooting happened and there were no U.S. casualties.
The United Nations has said it will not increase the number of U.S. soldiers standing guard outside its facilities from the dozen or so it had before the attack. Two U.N. employees were still unaccounted for and an unknown number of people visitors to the building were still buried in the rubble, he said. The U.N.'s official death toll stood at 20. However, independent checks by The Associated Press at area hospitals showed at least 23 died in the blast.
EDITOR'S NOTE: AP writers Sameer N. Yacoub and D'Arcy Doran in Baghdad; and Hrvoje Hranjski in Tikrit contributed to this report.
(jt/dd/srh)
photo credit and caption: U.S. troops ride past a collapsed section of the United Nations' headquarters from Tuesday's bomb attack, Friday, Aug. 22, 2003, in Baghdad, Iraq. U.S. investigators Friday were questioning Iraqi employees and guards who worked at the United Nations headquarters _ many with ties to Saddam Hussein's security service _ on the growing suspicion that the deadly truck bombing of the U.N. facility may have been an inside job, the top U.S. security official in Iraq said Friday. (AP Photo/Karim Kadim)
Copyright 2003 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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