Iraqi officials reopened a landmark Baghdad bridge on Tuesday after it was destroyed by a truck bomb last year, vowing to defeat terrorists and unite a country ravaged by sectarian strife.Snipers took up positions along the rebuilt Sarafiya bridge as Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki led the ceremony beneath the structure. "We have to mark this day to declare the victory of the generous will of Iraq which was not defeated," he told the crowd of mostly army and police officers. "A year ago when this bridge was blasted, Iraq was slipping into the brink of civil war." The violence has since eased.
The bombing of one of Baghdad's most famous landmarks was not only an attack on the city's infrastructure. Some saw the attack -- one of several on bridges at the time -- as part of a more sinister plot by insurgents to split Baghdad into a Shi'ite east bank and a Sunni west bank.