The bomb exploded some 80m from our building, the explosion shook the building and has shattered the windows of dozens of shops and appartments in the vicinity. Kerrada is a pleasant area in central Baghdad, where christian, shia and sunni muslims live. It has a main road - Marri Kerrada , the road like most in Baghdad has a central reservation. The central reservation consists of a single line of large kerbstones, they measure 40cm high by 30cm wide - just large enough when you cross the road to stand on them and wait for a gap in the traffic.

The bomb had been placed on the one side of the kerbstone. The US convoy travelled up the side of the road that the bomb was not on - thus the kerbstone protected the convoy from the blast. However on the same side of the road as the bomb were innocent Iraqis. The bomb was detonated as an old red VW Passat was right next to it, while the convoy was also next to it , but protected by the kerbstone. We believe the man that died may have been a man selling cigarettes, at the makeshift stalls that poor Iraqis make to earn a small wage. We arrived within a minute, the man was obviously going to die. There was a huge pool of blood leaving his head, but he was slightly moving (we dont want to unnecessarily upset people by this , but feel it necessary to highlight what does happen, the horror was that you see this scene on hollywood films again and again, but the big difference was this was real and this man leaves behind 5 children). There was another man who was covered in blood and looked like he was dead , but when people began to carry him away he regained consiousness, although he is severely injured. No Americans were injured , although Kev heard one complaining that he could not hear anything.

This area we do our shopping in, we know many of the shop keepers and stallholders, we always say hello to them. This is the community that we live in. At present the area is completely sealed off.When it is opened up we try to ascertain what happened.

What we fail to understand is the thoughts of the person who carried out this desperate act. The bomb was on the wrong side of the kerbstone to harm the Americans, but rather than leave it , they decided to go ahead anyway. They would have been watching, waiting and would have seen the shopkeepers and stallholders. It is important though to try to keep all aspects of war in context .From the bomber pilots who dropped bombs on residential areas, even cluster bombs that still maim and kill today to the politicans who invoked and supported the economic sanctions that killed 100,000s of Iraqi children (the UN confirmed these figures and also implemented them), to the desrerate operator of the bomb this morning.

One thing is certain that seeing this mornings scene will stay with us and tells us one thing - war is wrong and should only ever come to being as a last final resort. And that was not what happened in Iraq. The whole thing should have been done differently.
We will go now as we have a busy day ahead of us, but it and our future time here will bear heavy with todays sights.
Kevin and Helen Willaims