Oct. 26 (Bloomberg) — Twin suicide car bombs targeting government buildings in central Baghdad killed more than 150 people and wounded hundreds in one of the deadliest attacks in recent years, the state-run Iraqi news agency said.

The explosions went off at 10:30 a.m. local time yesterday outside the headquarters of the Baghdad provincial administration and the Ministry of Justice, about 500 meters apart, the Iraqi National Agency said, citing unidentified officials.

A pall of smoke rose up from the scene of the attack in downtown Baghdad, which caused extensive damage to the surrounding buildings. Rescue workers dug through the rubble for bodies, with the death toll climbing throughout the day.

“This can only be considered as a serious shortcoming by the Iraqi security forces, which allowed such an attack to happen twice in a short space of time in the heart of the Iraqi government,” Alex Vatanka, senior Middle East analyst at Englewood, Colorado-based IHS Jane’s, a defense research group, said in a telephone interview.

The bombings were the second since August to target government buildings in the Iraqi capital. Coordinated explosions in Baghdad on Aug. 19 struck sites including the Foreign Ministry, killing almost 100 people. Iraq has suffered a surge in violence this year focused on government offices, security forces, the majority Muslim Shiite population and the Kurdish-dominated northern cities of Mosul and Kirkuk.

Fragile Security

The attacks, blamed by the government on al-Qaeda and insurgent groups, underscore the fragility of security since U.S. troops withdrew from urban areas on June 30 and as the country prepares for elections in January. U.S. President Barack Obama aims to remove all combat forces by the end of August 2010 and wants a complete U.S. withdrawal by the end of 2011.

“This is horrible news for Obama, who wants to have less importance for Iraq in foreign policy and focus more on Afghanistan,” Vatanka said. “Iraq is reappearing as a significant factor, complicating hugely his entire foreign policy.”

The bombings are “outrageous” and “serve no purpose other than the murder of innocent men, women and children,” Obama said in a statement e-mailed to reporters from the White House. Obama spoke with Iraqi President Jalal Talabani and Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki yesterday, expressing his condolences and reiterating the U.S. commitment “to stand with Iraqis,” the statement said.

Reversible Progress

The bombings showed “that the progress in Iraq, though significant, remains fragile and reversible,” General David Petraeus, head of U.S. Central Command, said in an e-mail to Bloomberg News.

“Despite all that has been achieved by Iraqi and Coalition Forces, there still are extremists who want to re-ignite the cycle of sectarian violence that did such enormous damage to Iraq in 2006 and 2007,” Petraeus wrote. “We must sustain our efforts, with our increasingly capable Iraqi partners, to prevent that.”

Senator John McCain of Arizona said the attacks won’t cause the U.S. to rethink its troop drawdown strategy, speaking yesterday on the CBS program “Face the Nation.”

“There will continue to be outbreaks of this violence — it’s extremists trying to ignite sectarian violence, that’s what’s going on,” McCain said. “We’ve still got a ways to go but it’s not going to require any delay in withdrawal of U.S. troops.”

The attacks will continue “but they are not sustainable,” said McCain, ranking Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee. “The Iraqi military will be able to handle this transition” as U.S. troops continue to be reduced from the current level of about 117,000, he said.

Precarious Time

While violence is below levels at the height of sectarian conflict between Shiites and minority Sunni Muslims three years ago, it has undermined Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki.

“This is coming at a precarious time because of the upcoming elections and the rather quickly paced U.S. withdrawal next year,” Peter Harling, an Iraq expert at the Brussels-based International Crisis Group, said by phone from Damascus. “Maliki opponents in the elections have an interest in seeing him fail in his reputation as someone who has brought a degree of stability. The insurgents are keen to show they have the ability to destabilize Iraq.”

U.S. and Iraqi commanders have said they expect violence to increase before the national elections in January. Apart from the August bombings, the single previous worst incident this year in Iraq was on June 24, when 69 people died following a blast in a market in Baghdad’s Shiite Sadr City area.

– With assistance from Daniel Williams in Cairo and Tony Capaccio in Washington. Editors: Ann Hughey, Gregory Mott.

Bloomberg | Henry Meyer | Monday, October 26, 2009