Ok, is it just me, or does anyone else have a problem with enticing small children to show up at high-profile US photo ops in Baghdad? Does it take a rocket scientist to know that these events are high-value terrorist targets? I mean, you wouldn't catch me dead at an event like that if I lived in Baghdad (hell, you wouldn't catch me in Baghdad at all). But the US authorities assume it's safe enough for kids? And now they're all dead.
Now that I've had a few more minutes to think about this... President Bush said things were going well in Iraq and it was only a handful of people causing disturbances. His puppet Allawi said last week, in a speech we now know was written by the State Department and Bush's presidential campaign staff, that things were going well in Iraq and most of the country was fine. Did local US officials on the ground in Baghdad rely on Bush's and Allawi's assurances when planning this event? Is that why they felt it was safe enough to entice children to a clearly-dangerous propaganda fest, an invitation that just got 35 children killed and over 100 wounded? Because they relied on Bush's and Allawi's lies?
A series of bombs killed 35 children and seven adults Thursday as U.S. troops handed out candy at a government ceremony to inaugurate a new sewage treatment plant. Hours earlier, a suicide blast killed a U.S. soldier and two Iraqis on the capital's outskirts.
The bombs in Baghdad's al-Amel neighborhood caused the largest death toll of children in any insurgent attack since the conflict in Iraq began 17 months ago.
"The Americans called us, they told us, 'Come here, come here,' asking us if we wanted sweets. We went beside them, then a car exploded," said 12-year-old Abdel Rahman Dawoud, lying naked in a hospital bed with shrapnel embedded all over his body.
Two bombs went off in quick succession at the ceremony about 1 p.m., then were followed by a third explosion a short distance away, said Interior Ministry spokesman Col. Adnan Abdul-Rahman. He said there were two suicide car bombs and one roadside bomb; the Americans said all three were car bombs.
The explosions killed 42 people and wounded 141, including 10 U.S. soldiers. The wounded included 72 children under the age of 14, said Dr. Mohammed Salaheddin.
One boy lay swathed in bandages on a stretcher, his severed leg on a table beside him. Others were scarred by shrapnel, their clothes blown off by the force of the explosion.
