A suicide car bomber killed at least 13 people in Baghdad on Monday, as Iraq’s interim president cited the decision to disband Saddam’s army and key ministries as a contributing factor to the violence over the last 18 months.
The explosion took place at the entrance to the Green Zone, the vast fortified complex that houses in the interim Iraqi government and the British and US embassies.
”We had stopped in the car when all we felt was a car explode next to us,” one injured Iraqi civilian at the city’s Yarmuk hospital told Reuters.
Ghazi al-Yawar, who became interim president in June, told the BBC that Washington and London had made ”a big mistake” in the first months of the occupation.
He said that the US-led administration should have screened out individuals from the former regime who were implicated in abuses rather than dismissing people wholesale.
”Dissolving the ministry of defence and ministry of the interior was a big mistake at that time,” he told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme.
”We could have screened people out, instead of screening people in and this could have saved us a lot of hassle and a lot of problems.”
Efforts by US-led forces to establish a new Iraqi police service and army have so far failed to create a security structure capable of maintaining order in the country.
Eight US marines died in combat on Sunday in western Iraq, and in the southern city of Basra insurgents fired mortar shells at the British consulate but caused no casualties, a spokesperson said.
Yawar, speaking a year to the day after Saddam was captured by US troops from a underground bolthole near his childhood home, said Iraqis could not have toppled the dictator alone, but the future now depended on Iraq having ”100% efficient” forces of its own so foreign troops could withdraw.
”Toppling Saddam’s regime is the biggest plus that we will never regret happening. He left no choice for Iraqis because he established a dynasty of villains.
”As soon as we have efficient security forces that we can depend on, we can see the beginning of the withdrawal of forces from our friends and partners and I think it doesn’t take years, it takes months.”
Saddam’s lawyers released a statement on Sunday, ahead of the first anniversary of his capture, saying US and Iraqi forces were holding the former president illegally.
”It was more of a forced abduction that later became compulsory concealment and solitary confinement, acts rejected by all international conventions,” the statement said.
Saddam’s lawyers were appointed by his wife, Sajida, but have not been able to contact their client. None were at his side in Baghdad on July 1, when he was indicted on preliminary charges including killing rival politicians, gassing Kurds, invading Kuwait in 1990 and suppressing popular uprisings in 1991. – Guardian Unlimited Â