BAGHDAD, Oct 26: The rocket attack on Baghdad’s Rashid Hotel was not believed to have directly targeted US Deputy Defence Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and likely took months to prepare, a senior US officer said on Sunday.

“This device took a couple of months to prepare,” Brigadier General Martin Dempsey told a press conference in the Iraqi capital.

Dempsey said Wolfowitz had been inside the targeted Rashid Hotel, but could not say exactly where he was inside the building at the time of the attack early Sunday.

He said he did not believe the attack targeted him since “his travel itinerary certainly was not known.”

“I can’t tell you where he was. He was in the hotel. Do I think he was targeted? No, I do not,” said the commander of the 1st Armoured Division, which is responsible for Baghdad security.

Dempsey believed that “there is no doubt that it (attack) required reconnaissance and some rehearsal. It probably took some period of time to put this apparatus together.”

The device also “probably required a rehearsal to pull it in position in the time that they believed they had to position it.”

“So there is no question that it required some degree of preparations, probably lasting over a couple of months,” he said.

Dempsey accused the attackers of trying to “discredit” recent steps by the US-led coalition to improve security, including the reopening of a key bridge and the lifting of the nighttime curfew in the capital for the month of Ramazan.

Dempsey said “we have a very clear idea of who attacks us in Baghdad,” but declined to give further details.

“There’s some evidence of local organization. We’ve seen organization at the neighbourhood level and I might even say maybe on one side of the river or the other,” he said.

“I’m sure that those opposing us have tried to divide their space and divide their responsibilities and communicate to the extent that they can help and supply each other,” he said.

“But we haven’t seen much beyond the local level,” he added.

He said that when the Saddam regime “fell there was plenty of money to be handed out, and there were several, maybe more than several people with some skills in ordnance and they probably contributed there.”

Dempsey also said that attackers might “try to use” Ramazan “to either plan or execute” anti-coalition operations.—AFP