An Australian journalist bears witness to the effects of four U.S. "bunker-busters" - 2000-pound JDAM bombs - that were dropped on the "restaurant," which turned out to be a house, in which the US "believes" Saddam, his sons and other top officials "might" have been meeting.
...But that is nothing compared with the real damage a block away.
Four or five houses have disappeared and in their place is a crater maybe 30-40 meters wide and 15-20 meters deep.
Some of the photographers use a chilling term they picked up from the US military in Afghanistan to describe what might have happened to a dozen or more people thought to have died in this missile attack. They have become "pink mist".
The smoldering crater is littered with the artifacts of ordinary middle-class life in Baghdad - a crunched Passat sedan, a wrought-iron front gate, the armrest of a chair upholstered in green brocade and a broken bedhead.
The top floors of surrounding buildings are sheared off. Mud thrown by the force of the blast cakes what is left of them, and the nearby date palms are decapitated. Bulldozers and rescue crews work frantically, peeling back the rubble in the hope of finding survivors.
Neighbors and relatives of the home-owners weep openly in the street, some embracing to ease the pain and all of them wondering why such a powerful missile was dumped on them after the US has stated its heavy bombing campaign is over.
Whole story here, thanks to Common Dreams.
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