Six to eight rockets struck the Al Rasheed Hotel early Sunday, where U.S. military and civilian employees stay. A spokesman for the military command said there were an ``unknown number of casualties’’ and a quick reaction force had been dispatched to the scene. U.S. officials declined further comment.
Arrrgh.
The luxury hotel is located in an area tightly controlled by the U.S. military on the western side of the Tigris River near the headquarters of the U.s.-led coalition. Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, who began a three-day tour of Iraq on Friday, was in Baghdad, but his whereabouts were unknown.
| He was in the hotel, on his way to breakfast at the time... |
Some balconies in the midlevel of the hotel appeared damaged and a large hole was visible on one side of the building. Several Army Humvees and at least one armored personnel carrier were blocking the street leading up to the hotel.
Find the bad guys and whack ’em.
FOLLOWUP: From the Herald-Sun/AP...
In a daring strike, anti-American forces unleashed a barrage of rockets Sunday against the Al Rasheed Hotel, where visiting Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz was staying. Wolfowitz escaped, but a U.S. soldier was killed and 15 people were wounded.
| Casualty count hasn't changed from that. Guess it's the final figure... |
Scores of American officials living in the hotel fled in pajamas and shorts after the 6:10 a.m. assault, which apparently used a makeshift rocket battery on a timer that had been wheeled into a nearby park. More than a half-dozen holes pockmarked the hotel's concrete facade and windows were shattered in two dozen rooms.
| Fox News said the rockets were 122mm Katyushas, fired from a "home-made" launcher. The vehicle was disguised as a power generation van. 11 rockets were fired, of which 8 hit the hotel... |
Wolfowitz, who appeared shaken as he addressed reporters at a convention center across the street where most officials fled, vowed the attack would not deter the United States in its mission to transform Iraq. "There are a few who refuse to accept the reality of a new and free Iraq," he said. "We will be unrelenting in our pursuit of them."
| I didn't think he appeared "shaken", but what do I know? |
One U.S. soldier was killed and 15 people were wounded, including seven American civilians, four U.S. military personnel and four "non-U.S. coalition civilian partners," according to a statement by the U.S. command. Wolfowitz, on a three-day Iraq tour, was in the Al Rasheed at the time of the attack, Maj. Paul Swiergosz said at the Pentagon. The hotel houses civilian occupation officials and U.S. military forces. The heaviest damage was on what appeared to be the fifth and eighth floors of the modern, 18-story building. The attackers had boldly driven to the edge of a park just 500 yards southwest of the hotel, towing what looked like a portable, two-wheeled generator, Iraqi police said. They quickly fled, and rockets suddenly ignited within the trailer, apparently on a timer, flashing toward the nearby hotel. Their impact resounded across central Baghdad.
| The rocket-on-a-timer thing is a favorite of the Taliban. Set it up, arm it, then run like hell. |
Three approaching security guards were injured by the ignition blast, police said.
| I'd guess the ignition blast blew the trailer apart — and probably destroyed any aiming that had been done... |
Wolfowitz, expressing "profound sympathy" for the victims, said danger persists in Iraq "as long as there are criminals out there staging hit-and-run attacks." After the hotel attack, U.S. troops flooded the area, closing off roads around the "green zone," an already heavily guarded district of central Baghdad that includes the palace headquarters of the U.S.-led coalition and the offices of the interim Iraqi Governing Council. The morning clampdown caused monumental traffic jams. The rockets were fired two hours after coalition authorities ended the nighttime curfew in the Iraqi capital in preparation for the Muslim holy month Ramadan. Officials cited improved security as the reason for ending the curfew. An Iraqi police commander, who refused to give his name, said the attackers, in a white Chevrolet pickup, had driven down a main road passing a few hundred yards from the hotel and stopped at the edge of the city's main Zawra Park and Zoo. Security guards of the new Facilities Protection Service spotted the activity. "We approached him (the driver) to tell him to move the car. When he saw us, he fled," one of the injured guards, Jabbar Tarek, said at a nearby hospital. As Tarek and others approached, the rockets fired off from the blue trailer, police said. Tarek said the guards weren't armed, or "I would have fired on him."
| Looks like the guards should be armed, doesn't it? |
Later Sunday morning, U.S. soldiers could be seen removing at least two 3-foot-long rockets from the trailer, located about 500 yards southwest of the hotel. "There is no guarantee we can protect against this kind of thing unless we have soldiers on every block," said Lt. Brian Dowd of Nanuet, N.Y., a 1st Armored Division reconnaissance officer at the scene.
FOLLOWUP:
Davids Medienkritik notes that Rooters carried the screamer IRAQIS REGRET WOLFOWITZ SURVIVED. Their conclusion was based on a representative sampling of... ummm... one Iraqi. |