BAGHDAD — In recent months, Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki has sought to convince Iraq that it is finished with war. He ordered blast walls around Baghdad pulled down, including those near the Foreign and Finance Ministries. He has refused to ask the American military for help in any major way since Iraqi soldiers took full security responsibility in the cities on June 30.
Then two trucks drove into downtown Baghdad on Wednesday, detonating huge bombs that killed nearly 100 people and that gravely wounded Mr. Maliki’s case that Iraq is ready to defend itself without American help. The attacks also deepened a widespread dissatisfaction with Mr. Maliki, with some critics accusing him of polishing his political image as the man who restored security to Iraq at the expense of actual safety.
“The removal of the T-walls from the streets was just a propaganda way to say to Iraqis, ‘We have improved the situation,’ and it was just rubbish,” said Qassim Daoud, an independent Shiite politician and former national security adviser, using another name for the big concrete barriers that have come to define an Iraq in conflict.
Among the troubling questions to emerge from the heaps of rubble piled up from the blasts is how the Maliki government ultimately asked the Americans for help on Wednesday, apparently for the first time since the June 30 transfer. Under the countries’ security agreement, United States forces must stay out of Iraqi cities unless officially asked to return.
The request on Wednesday did not appear to have come until more than three hours after the explosions. By that time, most of the dying was done and most of the bleeding was stanched.
Hospitals filled to overflowing with more than 1,000 wounded people, but only a trickle of the victims went to the nearest one, the American military-run Ibn Sina Hospital in the Green Zone just three minutes away.
United States officials put the best possible face on it. “The Iraqis were fully in the lead yesterday and remain there today,” said Brig. Gen. Stephen R. Lanza, spokesman for the American military in Iraq. “They were the first responders and established security. They later requested U.S. forces’ assistance, which we provided to complement the Iraqi efforts.”
Others saw it as evidence that Mr. Maliki had overstated the readiness of Iraqi forces and safety in Iraq in the prelude to national elections in January that he hopes to win.
“The prime minister and the Iraqi people paid the price for their reach exceeding their grasp,” said John A. Nagl, a counterinsurgency expert and president of the Center for a New American Security, a research institution in Washington. “The insurgency is not over.”
Inviting the Americans back must have been difficult for Mr. Maliki, because no government spokesmen publicly mentioned that the United States helped, even as American troops continued to pitch in on Thursday.
The Iraqis also kept quiet about a decision by the prime minister late Wednesday to suspend his earlier order that all blast walls and similar fortifications be removed from the city by mid-September. An Iraqi government official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss security matters, said the suspension took immediate effect. There was no official announcement, but blast-wall removal that had been under way in the Salhiya area of Baghdad did not resume Thursday.
Many officials blamed such removals for the ease with which two open-topped trucks filled with nearly eight tons of explosives got within killing range of the Foreign and Finance Ministries. Iraqi officials said 95 people died and 1,203 were hospitalized.
It could have been even worse. Two other bombings seem to have been planned for Wednesday. A truck carrying 2,200 pounds of ammonium nitrate fertilizer was found abandoned just blocks from the Foreign Ministry. In addition, a car packed with explosives was stopped by the police, who said they arrested two extremists.
The Baghdad Operations Command, which reports to Mr. Maliki, issued a statement on Thursday saying it had detained 11 Iraqi security force officers in connection with the bombings. They included the commanders of two battalions stationed in the areas where the bombings occurred, and the chiefs of intelligence and the police and the top traffic wardens in the two neighborhoods. It was not clear if they were charged with negligence or complicity.
The arrests drew derision from many quarters. “They took this action to absorb the anger of the people,” said Zainab Kenani, a Shiite legislator from a political bloc that often supports Mr. Maliki. “These small officers had nothing to do with those incidents.”
Hadi al-Ameri, a Shiite legislator and chairman of Parliament’s security committee, said the leadership of the military and intelligence operations needed to be replaced.
“We have six intelligence services,” he said on Iraqiya, the state-owned television network. “How did these trucks get into this sensitive area?”
He was referring to the Foreign Ministry, which is near Parliament, several other government office buildings and the Green Zone’s main entrance. Fortifications and blast walls have been removed in recent months from the main roads there.
After the blasts, the United States military provided the Iraqis with air surveillance support, explosives-disposal and forensics teams and help setting up security cordons, said Lt. Col. Philip Smith, a spokesman for American forces in Baghdad.
Many United States soldiers at the scenes told reporters that they were waiting for permission to help more than three hours after the bombings.
Assistance on Thursday “was mostly focused on forensics of the blast sites and remnants of the car bombs themselves,” Colonel Smith added.
Maj. Gen. Jihad al-Jabouri, commander of an Iraqi bomb disposal unit, said the trucks carried ammonium nitrate fertilizer, along with artillery and mortar shells. The truck that hit the Foreign Ministry held 4,400 pounds of explosives, he said, while that at the Finance Ministry carried 3,300 pounds.
Mr. Maliki’s office issued a statement saying the bombings were “without a doubt a call to re-evaluate our security plans and mechanisms to face the challenge of terrorism,” suggesting that he was willing to review security arrangements.
On Thursday night, Iraqis placed hundreds of candles on burned-out cars, damaged walls and sidewalks near the Foreign Ministry bombing.
An Iraqi soldier approached a group that was about to add more candles and said his captain had ordered him to stop them.
“So where was your captain when the explosion happened?” one young man replied. “Why didn’t he put a checkpoint up here? Now you ask me to stop lighting a candle for my family. I am not going to stop, and if you want to stop me, just try.”
The soldier stood aside.
Reporting was contributed by Abeer Mohammed, Sam Dagher, Amir A. al-Obeidi, Mohammed Hussein and Riyadh Mohammed.
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