Over There

by digby

Yesterday two devastating suicide bombs were detonated at government offices in Bagdad. The LA Times ran this story, which brings what happened into stark, personal terms:

At the Mansour Melia hotel, parking attendant Zaid Haidar was puffing on a Galois cigarette when the first explosion sent glass and debris raining down. He started to bleed from cuts on his arms, hands and back. Nonetheless, he ran out and rushed toward the Justice Ministry, where there were dead all around, but the statue of Faisal was intact.

“Nobody knew what was going on. I forgot about the blood from my hands and legs, especially after I saw four dead women on the ground. They had on head scarves and looked like civil servants,” he said.

He also passed four lifeless Iraqi soldiers in a car.

The blast had torn down the ministry’s facade and flames ravaged the building. A jawbone and blackened teeth lay on the ground. Policemen and soldiers fired assault rifles and machine guns in the air.

Others began to curse the security officers and politicians:

“You are doing nothing.” “All you do is stand and play with your mobile phones.” “The parliament and government are fighting for their seats and leaving the criminals alone.”

Haidar, 27, picked up two wounded men and put them on a pickup truck before heading back to the hotel. Friends rushed him to the hospital for treatment. In the late afternoon, he returned home.

“My mother was crying when she saw me. I told her, ‘I am OK, Mom. I am in good shape.’ I saw my 5-month old son, Mohammed. I never thought I’d see him again,” he said.

Haidar, talking by phone late Sunday night, made it clear that he thought the situation would only get worse. He found himself alternately wishing that American troops still patrolled Baghdad or that officers from Saddam Hussein’s regime would return and save the country.

He said in an exhausted voice: “We will see more bombings and more violence. Political disputes will increase. Things will never be solved here.”

Heckuva job.

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