Press Trust of India/Associated Press Posted online: Monday, October 27, 2003 at 1841 hours IST Updated: Tuesday, October 28, 2003 at 1230 hours IST
Washington, October 27: A contractor supplying kitchen staff and secretaries for the Al-Rrasheed hotel, which came under attack while the US Deputy Secretary of state was putting up there, could have passed information to the anti - American resistance, reports said on Monday quoting an unnamed Iraqi informant.
US Army colonel was killed and 17 others were wounded when the hotel came under a barrage of rockets on Sunday while US Deputy Secretary of state Paul Wolfowitz was on a tour of the war-ravaged nation.
According to a Washington Times despatch from Baghdad, the informant, who works with the newly trained Iraqi police, claims that he had warned the coalition officials against the contractor nearly two months ago in a letter but was apparently ignored.
The Times turned over another copy of the letter to a lieutenant colonel in the US Army's 1st armored division on Sunday and was told it would be investigated.
The informant, who identifies himself fully in his letter but declined to have his name published, focuses his charges on Muslel Muhammed Farhan al-Dilemi, a 53-old manager of Al-Tamoor Trading Co, which provides services to the hotel.
Al-Dilemi "used to meet with men of Saddam's security, intelligence and most of the party officials," the September 2 letter says adding that al-Dilemi placed several people with jobs in the hotel kitchen and staffed the hotel with a number of "beautiful secretaries" for whom he arranged sexual liaisons.
"His people are the ones who get the hotel kitchen food and he gets half of what they get on a daily basis," said the letter, implying that al-Dilemi was running a food-smuggling racket.
It added, "he already knows which are the important floors such as floors 8, 9, 10 and 13 and also that most of the governing council people live at the hotel".
Wolfowitz is reported to have been sleeping in a room on the 13th floor when the rockets struck early on Sunday. The letter alleged that members of the hotel management are in league with al-Dilemi.
A hotel manager named in the report ensured al-Dilemi got the best contracts from the hotel during the Saddam era and is still working there, the letter claimed.
"Who knows what information is being passed to the pro-Saddam resistances?" the informant said on Sunday, suggesting that the most recent attack could have been avoided if he had been taken seriously.
"It's obvious that only an insider could have told the attackers that Wolfowitz was in the hotel, and that he was on the 13th floor," the informant claimed.
Brig. Gen. Martin E. Dempsey of the 1st armored division, Baghdad's effective military commander, said that he believed "the attack had been planned for two months and that the rockets had missed their targets because of an inaccurate propulsion system".
