Iraq: US military 'partly to blame' for bridge disaster

timesonline: ...[Iraqi] government sources....complained that the American military were partly to blame for the tragedy by failing to remove blast barriers from the bridge, which they said made it a bottleneck.

"The first mistake was the closure of all other bridges and the opening of just the smallest one," said a defense ministry official. He said Brigadier Abdul Jalel Khalaf, commander of the Iraqi army's 1st brigade,, had asked the Americans to remove the concrete barriers, but they had refused.

The same official also accused the Americans of preventing ambulances passing through roadblocks to reach the scene. "The Americans took a very bad initiative," he said. "They prevented the ambulances entering the area - it was a reason why so many died without the help of anyone." Coalition authorities declined comment on the allegations. Read more