Horror tales emerge as hunt for bodies goes on in Baghdad

By JUSTIN HUGGLER in Baghdad

They were still digging for bodies in the ruins of the United Nations headquarters in Baghdad yesterday. No one was sure how many may be down there in the rubble.

"Quite a few more" was all the UN's spokesman, Salim Lone, could say, trying to help reporters even as he dealt with his own private grief.

Nobody knew who was in the building when the bomb went off.

Bodies and clues were all they were searching for yesterday; no one hoped to find survivors. And as they dug, details of the horror at the Canal Hotel began to emerge.

Of how rescuers gave water to the UN's chief envoy, Sergio Vieira de Mello, as he lay dying under rubble they could not shift.

Of how the explosion was so powerful it not only blew a 1.8m crater in the ground, but shattered the windows of the hospital next door, sending glass into the eyes of paralysed patients as they lay in their beds, unable to escape.

The picture was stark: a picture of a horrific bombing that was all too easy because the UN deliberately chose to keep its security light.

And in a city that is full of potential Western targets with little or no security, everyone fears another bombing is coming.

The only question is where.

"It was terrible," an Iraqi UN worker, who did not want his name printed, told us from his hospital bed, his face painfully patterned with fresh stitches.

"I was in my office ... All of a sudden I felt something very bad happen. I felt it, I didn't even hear it. Suddenly, there was a bright white light, then darkness. I thought I had lost my eyes. I shouted to my colleagues but none replied.

"I went to the lobby, I thought the whole building had collapsed. When I got to the street one of my colleagues led me home.

"I wasn't surprised. I expected something like this. There was only one Humvee outside. Our Iraqi security guards wanted to be armed but their request was rejected."

In the hospital nearby, Samir Abbas, paralysed by shrapnel in his back since he was hit by American missiles in a crowded Baghdad market during the bombing, lay helpless while shards of glass and roof tiles rained on him.

"The people who did this are shameless," he said. "After all our tragedy they added some more."

Liad Ahmad, a 16-year-old patient paralysed in a car accident, had to have glass surgically removed from his eye.

Michael Birmingham, an Irish humanitarian worker and peace activist who has been here since last October, was working on the internet in the UN building. "I saw really horrific things ... It's really terrible and upsetting to see people you have known well and you don't know if they're going to make it.

"On the one hand the security was abysmal, and on the other, you had American soldiers with rocket launchers outside and American soldiers walking around inside, which made it a target."

Lone agreed security was not tight. "We wanted to avoid that ... We are here to work with the people of Iraq. We didn't want to be behind barbed wire."

But, he added, "We will not be able to carry on the mission as we have been doing so far."

Most buildings where Western agencies are based are poorly guarded, with little protection against a determined suicide bomber in a truck packed with heavy explosives.

The Iraqi staffer, who joined the UN 15 years ago, said from his hospital bed: "If they ask me to go in to work tomorrow I will go, because I strongly believe this organisation can assist the Iraqi people."

- INDEPENDENT

Herald Feature: Iraq