After I had written and filed my story this morning, I returned to the convention center in order to see if I could give a copy of it to my two female Parliamentarian interviewees. I entered the front of the building and climbed the stairs to the second floor but after a visual search of the many delegates gathered there to caucus between sessions, I was unable to find who I was looking for and so I left.
An hour later an apparent suicide bomber somehow managed to enter the restaurant and set off an incendiary device which, according to Reuters, injured over a dozen delegates, some of them seriously. Two delegates were allegedly killed.
My heart goes out to the injured delegates and their families - and to all of Iraq. Am I relieved that I missed being injured by flying shrapnel or burned? Of course. But more than that, I am deeply grieved by this tragic horror that happened to people who were well and whole just mintues before.
