While violence has dropped dramatically in the country since the height of the sectarian tensions, such bombings like Sunday’s demonstrate the precarious nature of the security gains and the insurgency’s abilities to still pull off devastating attacks in the center of what is supposed to be one of Baghdad’s most secure areas.

Black smoke could be seen billowing from the frantic scene, as emergency service vehicles sped to the area. Even civilian cars were being commandeered to transport the wounded to hospitals.

“The walls collapsed and we had to run out,” said Yasmeen Afdhal, 24, an employee of the Baghdad provincial administration, which was targeted by one of the car bombs. “There are many wounded, and I saw them being taken away. They were pulling victims out of the rubble, and rushing them to ambulances.”

The car bombs, which targeted the Justice Ministry and the Baghdad provincial administration, come as Iraq is preparing for elections scheduled this January, and many Iraqi officials have warned that violence by insurgents intent destabilizing the country could rise.

There have been no claims of responsibility so far, but massive car bombs have been the hallmark of the Sunni insurgents seeking to overthrow the country’s Shiite-dominated government.

At least 25 staff members of the Baghdad Provincial Council, which runs the city, were killed in the bombing, said council member Mohammed al-Rubaiey.

The area where the blasts occurred is just a few hundred yards from the Green Zone that houses the U.S. Embassy as well as the prime minister’s offices. The street where the blasts occurred had just been reopened to vehicle traffic a few months ago, in what was supposed to be a sign that safety was returning to the once devastated city.

The devastating attacks occurred just hours before Iraq’s top leadership was scheduled to meet with heads of political parties on Sunday and reach a compromise on the disputed election law ahead of a crucial parliamentary vote in January.

The explosive-laden vehicles were sitting in parking garages next to the two government building, police said.

“They are targeting the government and the political process in the country,” Maj. Gen. Qassim al-Mousawi, spokesman for the city’s operations command center, told The Associated Press. He said the blasts were the work of suicide bombers who drove the vehicles into the parking lots, before blowing them up.

The blasts, which surpassed coordinated attacks against two government ministries in August that killed more than 100 people, appeared to be a blow to Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki who has staked his reputation and re-election hopes on returning security to the country.

Al-Maliki toured the blast sites later in the day.

Sunday’s explosions also injured nearly 600 people who were taken to six area hospitals. Medical officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media, gave the death toll.

Video images captured on a cell phone showed the second blast going off in a massive ball of flames, followed by a burst of machine gun fire.

“This is a political struggle, the price of which we are paying,” said provincial council member al-Rubaiey. “Every politician is responsible and even the government is responsible, as well as security leaders.”

Three American security contractors, working for the U.S. embassy in Baghdad were injured in the blasts, but no American embassy personnel were killed, said Philip Frayne, an embassy spokesman. Frayne could not immediately provide details about who the contractors were escorting to the site, which company they worked for or, or the nature of their injuries.

It is a coincidence that this very day Iraq has auctioned off some of the country’s largest oil fields to companies such as ExxonMobil, Chevron and British Petroleum. Is it not a reminder of the real motives for the 2003 invasion? The invasion resulted in deaths of over one million Iraqis and 4,634 American and other Western troops. The Iraq war was, and continues to be, an imperialist war waged by the American ruling elite for control of oil and geo-strategic advantage.

As written by James Cogan

In an apt analogy, Larry Goldstein of the US-based Energy Policy Research Foundation told the New York Times last week: “Asking why oil companies are interested in Iraq is like asking why robbers rob banks—because that’s where the money is.” Iraq’s total oil reserves are estimated to be at least 115 billion barrels. Its reserves of natural gas are at least 3.36 billion cubic metres.

 

Millions of people around the world understood in 2003 that the claims of the Bush administration and its international allies about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction and links to terrorism were threadbare lies promulgated to justify the plunder of the country’s oil wealth. The claim by the Obama White House that it is continuing the occupation to consolidate “Iraqi democracy” is also a lie.

One can hope that this day will mark a new beginning of Iraq’s history and will bring long awaited political, financial and social stability.

An Iraqi journalist was wrestled to the floor by security guards after he called Mr Bush “a dog” and threw his footwear, just missing the president.

With his second shoe, which the president also managed to dodge, Mr Zaidi said: “This is for the widows and orphans and all those killed in Iraq.”

Mr Zaidi, a correspondent for Cairo-based al-Baghdadiya TV, was then wrestled to the ground by security personnel and hauled away. “If you want the facts, it’s a size 10 shoe that he threw,” Mr Bush joked afterwards.

What a surprise for President Bush on his last surprise visit to ‘free’ Iraq.