Baghdad's governor on Monday blamed "human failure" for the bombings in the heart of the capital that killed around 100 people, as Iraqi leaders kept up efforts to reach accord on a key election law. Dr Salah Abdul Razzaq, the governor, said his office had video footage showing the vehicles which exploded on Sunday, the deadliest day in the violence-wracked country in more than two years.
The near-simultaneous vehicle bombings targeting the justice ministry and the Baghdad provincial government headquarters wounded more than 500 and left body parts and charred corpses scattered around the streets of the capital. "It's a human failure ... It can only be negligence or collusion," Abdul Razzaq told AFP, noting that footage showed a white Renault truck carrying two tonnes of explosives driving up to the justice ministry building.
The logo of the Department of Water in Fallujah, west of Baghdad in Al-Anbar province, was painted on the side of the truck, he said. "How did it get from Fallujah to here?" Razzaq said the car bomb that detonated in front of the provincial government building was a Kia minibus.
Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki chaired an emergency meeting of the National Security Council late on Sunday to discuss the attacks with his military and police chiefs, government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said. The prime minister vowed soon after the blasts that such attacks would not affect the political process or parliamentary elections due in January.
"We promise to bring justice to the enemies of the Iraqi people, who want to spread chaos across the country and block the political process and the holding of elections," he said. Several roads in central Baghdad remained closed on Monday, with a heavy security presence on the streets, leaving many commuters having to walk part of the way to work.
Dozens of Iraqi army humvees lined the roads while new checkpoints were established. Traffic was gridlocked outside a perimeter established around the bomb sites near the ministry of justice and the provincial government offices, with few cars allowed in. Razzaq warned that some streets may have to be permanently closed "because of the importance of the ministries".
The bombs killed 99 people, a senior health ministry official told AFP on Monday, a figure confirmed by Dabbagh, Razzaq and Major General Qassim Atta, spokesman for the Iraqi army's Baghdad operations. An interior ministry official, however, put the death toll at 155. Among the dead were at least six children who had been playing in a nursery near the justice ministry, while 10 others were wounded.
The nursery itself was destroyed by the bomb, with blood covering the ground. At the entrance to the building were several boxes filled with children's shoes. "We took all the injured children to the hospital - I don't know if they are still alive," said army Colonel Khalil Ibrahim, chief of security at the justice ministry.
Al-Karama hospital in central Baghdad, meanwhile, said the force of the blasts was so strong that it could not identify whether some of the corpses were male or female. Rescue efforts were continuing on Monday, with General Waleed Hamid noting that 600 rescue workers had been sorting through debris at the ministry of justice bomb site alone. "It's possible that we will find more corpses," said Hamid, Baghdad's civil defence chief.
The US military, which still has around 120,000 soldiers stationed in Iraq, "provided explosive ordnance disposal teams and forensics personnel to assist with the investigation following the attacks," a military spokesman said. Maliki, meanwhile, was to meet with President Jalal Talabani and parliament speaker Iyad al-Samarrai later on Monday over a stalled election law amid growing concern that polls slated for January 16 will have to be delayed.
Their discussions follow a high-level political meeting held on Sunday which concluded without agreement. The election law would require parties to publish full lists of their candidates, in contrast to the current closed list system whereby voters see only party names.
US President Barack Obama telephoned during Sunday's meeting to express his condolences over the bombings, and he also urged lawmakers to reach resolution quickly, an MP who took part told AFP. A major hurdle has been lack of agreement over the oil-rich province of Kirkuk, which the Kurds have long demanded be incorporated in their autonomous region in the north despite the opposition of its Arab and Turkmen communities.
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