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Iraq ambulance bomb kills three { January 29 2004 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,8520989%255E2703,00.htmlhttp://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,8520989%255E2703,00.html
Iraq ambulance bomb kills three
From AFP, AP
January 29, 2004
AT least three people were killed when a booby-trapped ambulance smashed into a Baghdad hotel yesterday, only hours after incidents in which six coalition soldiers, two CNN workers and at least two Iraqis died.
The violence came within a day of a United Nations announcement it would return staff to study the feasibility of swift elections in the ravaged country.
In Washington, the White House - smarting from the failure to find Saddam Hussein's alleged weapons of mass destruction - denied it had ever warned that the Iraqi leader posed an "imminent" threat to the US.
The attacks in Iraq brought to 243 the number of US soldiers killed in Iraq since US President George W. Bush declared an end to major combat on May 1.
Australian CNN reporter Michael Holmes was in a two-car convoy hit by sudden gunfire near Baghdad, killing a producer and a driver. Holmes said the convoy's security guard's quick return of fire had prevented more casualties. "This was not an attempted robbery, they were clearly trying to take us out," he said.
At least three people later died when an explosives-laden ambulance drove into a hotel, destroying its front and a neighbouring police station.
Despite the violence, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan announced in Paris he was prepared to send staff back to Iraq.
"The UN can play a constructive role in helping to find a way out from the current impasse," he said. "As soon as I have been persuaded that the Coalition Provisional Authority will take adequate measures to assure security, I will send a mission to Iraq as I have been requested."
Mr Annan withdrew all UN expatriate staff from Iraq last August after a bombing killed his chief envoy, Sergio Vieira de Mello, and 21 others at the world body's headquarters in Baghdad.
US-led coalition forces have been on the defensive over their plan to hand over sovereignty by June 30 to a provisional government selected through 18 regional caucuses.
Support is growing for a Shi'ite cleric's campaign for an alternative process of direct elections.
Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the country's most influential Shi'ite cleric, has indicated he will withdraw threats of civil unrest -- and possibly abandon his direct elections call -- if the UN rules there is insufficient time to organise fair elections before the handover.
White House spokesman Scott McClellan denied the threat from Hussein had ever been characterised as "imminent". "Those were not words we used. We used 'grave and gathering' threat," he said.
The chief US weapons inspector, David Kay, resigned last week, saying no evidence has been found to support claims that Saddam had stockpiles of biological and chemical weapons.
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