Baghdad Blast Kills At Least 9

At Yarmuk Hospital, wounded men lay in a half-dozen wards, their heads bandaged, their faces and arms quickly stitched where they had been struck by flying glass and metal. Among them was Saddam Abdul Hussain, 24, a car washer, who wept silently and murmured that his head hurt.

"You're alive, praise God!" an older man cried out, rushing up and clenching Abdul Hussain's limp hand in a spasm of relief. A few moments later his mother arrived, muttering in protest: "Why do you have to work in that place? Why did you have to leave my sight?"

Police officers in uniforms flecked with blood crowded around other beds, venting their rage at the insurgents, the Iraqi authorities who they said had failed to protect the nascent police force, and the U.S. military presence that they felt had brought on all the trouble.

"We serve our people, the terrorists attack us, and there is no one to protect us," said Sgt. Jabar Qadm, 39, whose arm was bandaged. He said he wanted to leave the police force. "Why don't the Americans close the borders and keep these people out? If I am killed next time, what will my children do?"

But Mahmoud Meshkour, 30, who quit his job as a shoemaker last year to join the new force, said he intended to return to work. At 8 a.m. he was changing into his uniform when the bomb exploded. At midday, he lay in the hospital with stitches around his right eye, miraculously still able to see.

"I joined the police because I wanted to catch the terrorists. Now I want to kill them too," he said.

His wife and mother crouched next to the bed in black capes, begging him to leave the force. But Meshkour shook his head.

"I want to do my job," he insisted. "If we run away, who will protect our country?"

A senior police officer ran from ward to ward, checking pulses and intravenous drips. He complained bitterly at the shortage of medicine at the hospital and equipment at al-Ilam station, where he said there were only 14 bulletproof vests for 300 officers.

"We have been threatened and attacked so many times, but still we do not even have concrete barriers," said the officer, who gave his name as Capt. Amar. He dashed out of one ward looking for syringes, but returned empty-handed. "I just don't want to keep losing my men."