So Stupid, It's Funny

AP/IWON.com 'reports' below.

Failed to say why the UN didn't just use it's own
forces if it was worried about the U.S. presence.

Also, forgot to note that KAMAZ trucks are favorites of Chechen rebels.

And, that only an idiots would allow trucks to come near the place.

And, that Saddam bought the munitions w/ aid $$$
and profits from selling oil to U.S. gas-guzzlers.

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - The FBI said Wednesday the deadly bomb that ripped through U.N. headquarters in Iraq was made from 1,000 pounds of old munitions, including a single 500-pound bomb - all materials from Saddam Hussein's prewar arsenal that required no "great degree of sophistication" to assemble.

An FBI special agent at the site of Tuesday's unprecedented attack on the world organization said it was impossible yet to say whether the bomb was the work of Saddam loyalists or foreign terrorists.

Hopes of finding survivors faded Wednesday afternoon, 24 hours after an explosives-rigged truck brought down the facade of U.N. offices in the Canal Hotel, killing at least 20 people including the top U.N. envoy in Iraq, Sergio Vieiera de Mello. About 100 people were wounded.

A key member of the U.S.-picked interim government said the death toll could go much higher. About 300 U.N. employees worked at the headquarters.

"There are many who are still trapped in there," said Ahmad Chalabi, a member of the Governing Council and leader of the Iraqi National Congress. Chalabi insisted the bomb was the work of Saddam loyalists but gave to evidence to support that.

FBI Special Agent Thomas Fuentes said the bomb had been delivered by a KAMAZ flatbed truck. Such trucks were made in the former Soviet Union. U.S. officials had said on Tuesday that a cement truck delivered the explosives.

"We believe it (the bomb) was made from existing military ordnance. ... I cannot say that it required any great degree of sophistication or expertise to create...," Fuentes told The Associated Press.

Chalabi also said the Governing Council had received information Aug. 14 - just days before the bombing - that there would be a terror attack in Baghdad, and that the council warned the United States.

"The information said that the attack would be aimed at a soft-target, not the American military or forces. The information said the attack would use a truck and would be carried out by using a suicide mechanism or by remote control. We shared this information with the Americans," Chalabi told reporters.

He said his investigators had yet to examine the rubble pile where the victims were killed. He said there was concern that searchers could be harmed by unexploded materials used in making the bomb, which also consisted of Soviet-era artillery and mortar shells as well as hand grenades.

Wednesday's bombing was far more sophisticated than the guerrilla attacks that have plagued U.S. forces, which have been hit-and-run shootings carried out by small bands or remote-control roadside bombs.

In the latest such violence, insurgents fired a rocket-propelled grenade at a U.S. convoy Wednesday, killing a civilian working for the occupation force and injuring two soldiers, U.S. Maj. Brian Luke said. The civilian contract worker was the second killed this month in Tikrit, Saddam's hometown. It was not immediately known whom he worked for.

Fuentes said human remains found in the area where the bomb exploded, about 50 feet from Vieira de Mello's office, suggested a suicide bombing. He said that could not be absolutely determined until laboratory testing was complete.

The positioning of the bomb near the envoy's office suggested he was the target of the attack, L. Paul Bremer, the top U.S. civilian administrator in Iraq, told CNN.

Speaking in Sweden, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said the attack would not drive the world body out of the country. He was to meet Wednesday with the Security Council later in the day to discuss security arrangements for U.N. workers in Iraq.

"We will persevere. We will continue. It is essential work," Annan told reporters before heading to U.N. headquarters in New York. "We will not be intimidated."

"We have been in Iraq for 12 years and we have never been attacked," Annan said, adding that the United Nations would reevaluate its security measures.

Unlike U.S. occupation forces, the United Nations had been welcomed by many Iraqis. No group has yet claimed responsibility for the bombing.

Bremer, speaking to NBC television, said it was not clear yet whether the attack was a suicide bombing. He also said there were "at least two hypotheses" as to who was to blame: either remnants of Saddam's regime or foreign insurgents.

World leaders condemned the attack and a defiant President George Bush vowed: "The civilized world will not be intimidated."

Some nations raised fears of more attacks; others suggested Washington end its occupation of Iraq. China's President Hu Jintao urged the United Nations to continue its mission to rebuild the nation, and Germany's Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder blamed the attack on "forces that do not want the rebuilding of Iraq to take place in peace and freedom."

The truck bomb was detonated at the concrete wall outside the three-story Canal Hotel at 4:30 p.m. Tuesday, blasting a 6-foot-deep crater in the ground.

Except for the recently built concrete wall, U.N. officials at the headquarters refused heavy security because the United Nations "did not want a large American presence outside," said Salim Lone, the U.N. spokesman in Baghdad.

Fifteen bodies in white bags were counted by a U.N. worker at the hotel, and a survey of Baghdad hospitals by The Associated Press found five other people who had died in the blast.

Veronique Taveau, a spokeswoman for the U.N. Humanitarian Coordinator, said the U.N. figure for the dead was 17 and 100 people were wounded. But she emphasized that there were still many people unaccounted for.

She said U.N. operations in Iraq were suspended and travel arrangements were being made for employees who wanted to leave. Local employees were told to stay home. Foreign workers were directed to stay in small hotels around the capital.

Vieira de Mello, who had left his job as U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights to go to Iraq on temporary assignment, was meeting with other U.N. officials when the bomb exploded. A news conference was also under way in the building, where 300 U.N. employees had worked.

The 55-year-old veteran diplomat from Brazil was trapped in the rubble, and workers gave him water as they tried to extricate him. Hours later, the United Nations announced his death.

In Geneva, U.N. staff sealed Vieira de Mello's private office in the lakeside headquarters of the human rights office and attached a photograph of him to the door. Staff placed flowers and a candle in front of the door next to a pale blue U.N. flag.

The bombing - which U.N. and U.S. officials called a "terrorist attack" - came nearly two weeks after a car exploded and killed 19 people at the Jordanian Embassy in Baghdad.

It resembled other attacks blamed on Islamic militants elsewhere in the world. Yet as FBI agents joined the investigation, Bernard Kerik, the former New York City police commissioner who is rebuilding the Iraqi police force, told reporters it was "much too early" to say if Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida network was responsible.

U.S. forces have focused on putting down Saddam loyalists thought to be behind the anti-American guerrilla campaign. But the military has also warned of foreign Islamic militants slipping into the country and has said an al-Qaida linked group, Ansar al-Islam, was a possible suspect in the Jordanian Embassy bombing.

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