BAGHDAD, March 22, 2007
Baghdad Blast Rattles U.N. Chief
Green Zone Explosion Occurs Near Meeting Between Ban Ki-Moon And Iraqi PM
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Video Explosion Shakes U.N. Chief CBS News RAW: U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon got a shock when a loud explosion shook his press conference with Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki in Baghdad's green zone.
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People gather around a a bomb crater in Ramadi, 70 miles west of Baghdad, Iraq, Thursday, March 22, 2007. (AP Photo)
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United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon reacts after an explosion hits Baghdad's Green Zone, March 22, 2007. Ban is in Baghdad to meet with Iraq Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. (CBS)
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Iraqi police officers gesture under a destroyed bridge adjacent to the ministry of finance, following the explosion of a car bomb in Baghdad on March 21, 2007. (Getty Images/Ahmad Al-Rubaye)
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Two Iraqi security guards on the grounds outside the building were slightly wounded, security officials said on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to reporters.
An Associated Press reporter ran outside and saw a crater one-meter in diameter about 50 meters from the building where the news conference was in progress. Two cars were damaged.
Al-Maliki security officials said it was a rocket attack. U.S. helicopters were quickly in the air headed in the direction from which the rocket was fired.
Small chips of debris floated down from the ceiling above the U.N. chief after the big explosion rattled the building in the Green Zone. He looked frightened, casting his eyes right and left as he rose after ducking behind the podium where he was standing and answering questions next to the prime minister.
Al-Maliki said "nothing's wrong" as one of his security men started to grab the prime minister. The two men quickly resumed answering questions. The rocket landed as one of Ban's questions was being translated. They ended the question and answer session minutes later.
The sound of the weapon being fired — which sounded like a rocket launch — could be heard not far from The Associated Press office, which is across the Tigris River to the east of the Green Zone, which also houses the U.S. Embassy and Iraqi government offices.
Al-Maliki had just finished telling reporters that Ban's visit was a sign that Iraq was on the road to stability.
"We consider it (visit) a positive message to world in which you (Ban) confirm that Baghdad has returned to playing host to important world figures because it has made huge strides on the road toward stability," al-Maliki said in his opening remarks.
Ban and al-Maliki were speaking to reporters after meeting for about one hour in the heavily fortified Green Zone. Ban was to leave Baghdad later Thursday after the first visit by the top U.N. official in nearly a year and a half. His predecessor, Kofi Annan, was in the Iraqi capital in November 2005.
"The new Secretary General is making a point with his travels — that he is willing to play an activist role in diplomacy," said CBS News foreign affairs analyst Pamela Falk from the U.N. Thursday. "And given how many international crises are brewing right now, his role is being welcomed by most nations."
In other developments:
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Add a Comment See all 93 Comments
- RandalDS
I wish your wife all the best and hope when she'll recover from flu,she'll come up with some good advise for lar008(I know about her experience in Mental ward).
Posted by patriotic9 at 07:27 PM : Mar 22, 2007
Thanks, but I don't think they've come up with a drug to treat Troll-ism yet. Sure wish they would though! - Reply to this comment
- Na, Ki-moon was drunk and stumbling and they added the sound effect to save the face of an honorable public servant.
- Reply to this comment
- ******** Cheney and GW Bush don't travel to Iraq often enough for my liking.
I'd pay good money to see what their reaction would have been.
Posted by mcdazz at 11:57 PM : Mar 22, 2007
They'd both still be cleaning the sh*it out of their pants because both of them have shown themselves in the past to be what they are now, the lowest of the low, the scummiest of the scummiest, the most yellow-bellied gutless cowards in the world. In a real war situation like they're more then happy to send other peoples children to fight and die in each of them would pis*s their panties in fear every time they heard a shot. the only satisfaction we have as Americans is knowing that both of thier names will be recorded in the annuals of history as nothing more then the most cowardly cowards in American history. That forever they will always be (rightfully) tarred with the brush of being two of the most disgustingly gutless human beings that ever walked the face of the earth. I hope I outlive both of them and that some right wing as*shole erects a monument to one or both of them at their grave, just so I can have the privilege of standing in the very long line to pis*s on it. And I'll bring my dogs to lift their legs on their graves too. Even they know cowardly as*sholes when they see them and Bush and Cheney are two of the worst. - Reply to this comment
- James_John wrote:
"ehhehe OMG that video was so *** funny.
the poor Ban Ki-moon wet his pants.
I think he wont come again to baghdad for a long time ."
******** Cheney and GW Bush don't travel to Iraq often enough for my liking.
I'd pay good money to see what their reaction would have been. - Reply to this comment
- badaxmofo wrote:
"ra - how about a link that works, test it first for me, could ya?"
The link works fine.
Do you need some kind of help to copy and paste? - Reply to this comment
- badaxmofo Here is the article itself.There has been no follow up on this and no other news org. has it.Notice it says likely!!!!!!!!!!!!
British military: Damage to C-130 likely caused by IED
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- An explosion that occurred when a British C-130 landed last month in southern Iraq, wounding two soldiers, likely was caused by an improvised explosive device, British military officials said Tuesday.
The plane landed at a remote, undeveloped landing strip in Maysan Province with about 30 troops on board.
A British military spokesman told CNN that "early findings of the investigation" show the plane most likely hit an IED that was buried in the ground. The blast also badly damaged a wing of the aircraft. Officials said they don't know exactly when the IED was planted.
Officials said troops had used the unguarded landing site before, and it had been swept for explosive devices. --From Pentagon Correspondent Barbara Starr (Posted 10:21 a.m.) - Reply to this comment
- http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/europe/03/06/tuesday/index.html
You have to read down to find it, it barely made a paragraph. - Reply to this comment
- badaxmofo I gave you the link for J the other night. It occured on the 6th of March.
- Reply to this comment
- RandalDS
I wish your wife all the best and hope when she'll recover from flu,she'll come up with some good advise for lar008(I know about her experience in Mental ward). - Reply to this comment
- Can't join in now j. The wife is home with the flu and even though she's the RN, she's not a great patient. lol!
- Reply to this comment
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