Baghdad Blast's Grisly Remains

Lara Logan Reflects On The Aftermath Of A Suicide Bombing At The Mansour Hotel In Baghdad

(CBS)  By CBS News chief foreign correspondent Lara Logan

---

The first thing that hits you is the smell.

Fragments of human flesh rotting quickly in the hot Iraqi sun. They're splattered all over the walls, the rubble, the broken bits of furniture lying dusty and burnt in the wreckage. Small, fine bits of dark, bloody meat, mixed in with chunkier lumps sprayed in every direction by the force of the blast. Hair. Teeth. Anything you can identify and much you just can't.

It's what happens when you blow yourself up. There's not much left of you. And that's one of the hard realities of suicide attacks. Anyone can understand the feeling. When you see people badly hurt, when you witness the terrible pain and suffering and see innocent people die, you want to get the person responsible. You want them to pay, to be stopped, to be punished.

But they are gone. And you cannot punish them. It is the ultimate victory. A triumph of terror.

The man who walked into the lobby of the Mansour Melia Hotel in Baghdad and blew himself to pieces got exactly what he wanted.

Doubt, fear, anger. Grief. These are the emotions running from Baghdad to western Anbar province, where many of the dead came from. They were powerful leaders from prominent Sunni tribes in a land where family names are everything. The belief is they were targeted by al Qaeda because they were working with U.S. and Iraqi forces against the terrorist group.

They were former allies — al Qaeda and the Sunni tribes who fought together. Now they are enemies.

It is hard to know the truth. There has never been a Shiite suicide bombing in Iraq. In other parts of the world, yes, but not here. This is the signature of al Qaeda in this part of the world. No doubt they will proudly claim responsibility if it was their handiwork, never ones to shy away from the propaganda value in all they do.

We will probably never know everything.

But there is much I do know after today. I know that one of our CBS colleagues is lying in an American military hospital tonight, being cared for by some of the best doctors in the world. And I know he is there because the division commander for the 1st Cavalry, Major General Joseph Fil Jr., worked with the commanders in charge of the 28th Combat Support Hospital and they made it happen. I know that U.S. soldiers risked their lives again today to come to the aid of CBS staff after the hotel was bombed.

And I know that when our Iraqi colleagues saw U.S. soldiers coming to their aid, it meant something important. It didn't solve everything; it didn't make everything right. But for that moment, in that part of Baghdad, to those people, it was a sign of respect.

We owe the American soldiers who helped us Monday a debt of gratitude that can never be fully explained.

There are many people in the United States who will read this and never understand. It will be taken by the left and the right; it will be adopted by those for and against the war. It will be used.

It is not meant to be that way. What is true about Iraq remains true. And history and time will surely make that clear.

But it is so much more complicated close-up. Every day there are contradictions here that would confuse and surprise people far away.

The real danger we felt here today came not from al Qaeda, who gravely attacked Iraqi civilians and obliterated the lobby of this building.

It was from some of the Iraqi security forces, who are meant to instill confidence, not terror. It's not that all are bad. There are many courageous men amongst them who sacrifice so much. But there are also many militiamen and death squads and the truth is, if they're all wearing uniforms and carrying weapons, it's impossible to know the difference. And more importantly, who can afford to take the chance?

[feelfree1]

Re: "The belief is they were targeted by al Qaeda because they were working with U.S. and Iraqi forces against the terrorist group."

"They were former allies %u2014 al Qaeda and the Sunni tribes who fought together. Now they are enemies."

More unsubstantiated hype and deadly stupidity from Ms Lara Logan. She seems to have an endless supply of it.

Here is a related article:

"Everyone we fight in Iraq is now "al-Qaida"

"It's a curious thing that, over the past 10 - 12 days, the news from Iraq refers to the combatants there as "al-Qaida" fighters. When did that happen?"

"Until a few days ago, the combatants in Iraq were "insurgents" or they were referred to as "Sunni" or "Shia'a" fighters in the Iraq Civil War. Suddenly, without evidence, without proof, without any semblance of fact, the US military command is referring to these combatants as "al-Qaida".

"Welcome to the latest in Iraq propaganda."

www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/index.html

[lasso6-2009]

I was very disappointed in Lara Logan's report tonight. It's entirely understandable how emotions might get the best of an otherwise exceptional war correspondent in a bloody situation like this. But to speculate that al Qaeda was behind the bombing when no one has claimed responsibility, and then to use none other than Ahmed Chalabi as a source to support that speculation is reprehensible.

This is the same guy who gave bogus information to the Bush Administration regarding Saddam Hussein's massive stockpiles of WMD and mobile biological weapons factories that led us into this debacle in the first place.

He's wanted in Jordan for bank fraud. He's been investigated for fraud involving the exchange of Iraqi currency, grand theft of both national and private assets. The Iraqi police, along with U.S. soldiers, raided his offices and residence, taking documents and computers, presumably to be used as evidence. And of course he's going to deflect blame away from any Shi'a involvement in the bombing. He is from a prominent Shi'a family for heaven's sake!

But Ms. Logan knows all of this. So why was she interviewing this criminal on my television this evening? It just floored me.

[robertorico-2009]

The complicity of the press in the horror of Iraq has been systematic, if not intentional. The cleverness of the administration in embedding journalists in the first place paid off handsomely. Now, the journalists, however unwittingly, have become publicists--aggrandizing the military and, de facto, the administration.

The propaganda operation in the post-911 environment was so successful that even today, 41% of the US believe that Iraq was involved in the attack. The relentless misrepresentation of facts, the dissembling, deception and outright lies continue.

I don't blame a particular journalist in the bubble of violence for becoming emotionally involved. But when journalists become apologists and cohorts of the military and, de facto the administration--that it is harmful to the truth.

As mentioned earlier, in just a week and a half or so, insurgents have become exclusively, Al Queda. Parroting allows that to happen and allows a huge distortion to become almost instantly diffused among the people.

It is sad to see so many journalists become so co-opted. For those traumatized by the terror that is Iraq now, it is, perhaps a natural phenomenon. For those sitting behind desks on sets thousands of miles away, it is unconscionable. They are predominantly the ones with the power to shape public understanding. They seem to ask no questions that would be uncomfortable and repeat the intonations as they receive them. That is really disgusting.

[danborn]

Robert Rico,

You've got a lot of bad things to say about our government, our military and our press... but curiously not one bit of criticism for the jihadist murderers who perpetrated this atrocity.

Fight them there, or fight them here... but make no mistake, we must fight them. The Islamic fundamentalist ideology of martyrdom, as defined by the Koran, specifically prescribes the callous slaughter of all unbelievers (including you and me, all of our friends and all of our families), and as we have seen theirs has become a "kill the civilians first" approach to holy war.

If you think your spineless reprocessed pre-World War II pacifist ideas are going to provide future generations a better world in the struggle against Islamic jihadism, then I cordially invite you to sell all of your worldly possessions, and buy a one-way ticket to Tehran.

We have lost some valiant soldiers in this war, something shy of 4000, and every citizen of this country and free countries worldwide owe them a debt of gratitude. These Islamic ideologues holding entire societies hostage quite simply need to be eliminated from the face of this earth.

This is not going to happen without sacrifice, commitment and persistence on the part of the West. Freedom is not free; the only thing required for evil to triumph in this world is for good people to do nothing.

Good Day, Sir!

[jsm04d]

It's funny how easy it is for people to voice their dissappointment or approval of journalists.

I wonder if any of you that are quick to speak have taken any classes in journalism or media.

There is a whole world of issues that journalists deal with people don't know about. Right now, journalism is apart of a fight to regain power in the media. They don't control the message. Those that control them do.

Before we are quick to judge, walk in the other man/woman's shoes.

[dralanir-2009]

I respected Logan for her reporting from Baghdad in such conditions. But since her report about the "Orphanage House", I started suspecting that she is being used as a propaganda instrument by the US Army in their war in Iraq. And today with her report from Mansour Hotel In Baghdad, shows that she is the new speaker for the US Army in Baghdad. Immediately she pointed her finger on Al-Qaeda, even though she knows well that the Iraqi government was guarding the gates at the Hotel. She and most of the Foreign Reporters in Baghdad know very well that Iraqi government is heavily infiltrated with elements working hard to make the situation in Iraq as it is now.

[cbs_oliver]

I would like to know Lara Logan's source for the assertion that the suicide bomber was associated with Al Qaeda. Maybe it's true - but what is the evidence?

It would be a shame to have a touching human interest story marred by a banal bit of BS propaganda right at the end.

[feelfree1]

CBS_Oliver,

Re: "I would like to know Lara Logan's source for the assertion that the suicide bomber was associated with Al Qaeda."

From the video supplied with an accompanying article, Ms. Logan's 'source' for this information appears to be none other than Ahmad Chalabi, as another poster pointed out- a known wanted criminal, and chronic habbitual liar.

[one_american]

There go the leftist lunatic moonbats posting their propaganda again - defending al-Qaeda and terrorism...

If I had to make a choice, I would rather keep all the hard working Latin Americans who love this country, and deport the America-bashing liberals!

[mh4cbs1]

One American:

You are a pathetic excuse of an American. True patriotic Americans know that they have a civic duty to become informed of history and of current events.

If you were to take your head out of the sand (or stop pretending that FOX News is news), you would quickly learn that Cheney/Bush are driving our nation into the ground. With massive debt, massive trade deficit, tax cuts for the already obscenely wealthy, attacks on our basic freedom and way of life, and of course, this DISASTER War that was needless, based on LIES, and which has undermined the effort to destroy Al Qaeda and in fact has fueled anti-American outrage in the Middle East.

Fake WMDs, fake Al Qaeda links, fake Aluminum tubes, fake Niger unranium, fake color-coded terror alerts, fake intelligence sources with end-runs around the CIA, through the Rumsfeld Office of Special Plans into the VP office and into Bushes ear.

I hate to break it to you, but the FACT is that Saddam was telling the truth when he said he didn't have WMDs, and he let the UN inspectors have free access. It was Cheney/Bush who LIED, who used our troops as cannon fodder, and who now are pressuring the Iraqi Parliament into passing an Oil law that will give US corporations the profits and conrtol over the buld of Iraq's vast Oil Reserves ($21 TRILLION).

What don't you understand? Cheney/Bush are playing you for the chump you are. Wake Up!

[mh4cbs1]

Katie,

While Lara Logan's report sounds like it was written by a 4th grader (which should make you feel good), she will none-the-less get your job. The reason of course is that she is younger and cuter than you are, which is what counts in corporate media.