Security failure in Baghdad

PAUL Wolfowitz, the United States deputy defence secretary, very nearly became the latest and most spectacular victim of the terrorist campaign in Iraq yesterday.

Mr Wolfowitz was in Iraq to assess ways to defeat a stubborn, six-month-old insurgency. The irony of this purpose will not be lost on an American public increasingly unnerved by the US administration’s ability, or lack of ability, to foil a widely signalled and well-mounted assault. Only the day before, attackers fired rocket- propelled grenades and forced down a US helicopter north of Baghdad. Lower scale attacks are now running at 26 a day.

It is the boldness of these attacks as much as their frequency that raises searching questions about the competence of the security forces. The Al Rasheed is home to officials of the Coalition Provisional Authority and US military personnel. If a "citadel" building such as this can be hit by terrorists, either US security is at fault or the terrorist forces have more support than we have been given to understand. At stake here is not the perpetuation of foreign occupation - the US has no interest in remaining in Iraq a day longer than necessary - but the successful establishment of an Iraqi civilian government acceptable to the Iraqi people as a whole. That is why the terrorists must not win.

As a matter of priority, security and vigilance over buildings central to this mission must be maintained. The US could not afford the humiliation of one of its most senior figures being assassinated in the centre of a city meant to have been liberated six months ago, and such an outcome would also further weaken international support for coalition efforts to achieve the best hope for stability: a successful hand-over of power to a civilian administration.