Suicide bomber suspected in mess hall attack
22 killed; wounded arrive in Germany; remains flown to Kuwait City
 |  U.S. troops help a wounded comrade after an attack on a dining facility at a base near Mosul, Iraq. |
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|  VIDEO |
 A town mourns Nick Mason, killed in the mess hall attack.
 Brig. Gen. Carter Ham: "A sad day in Mosul."
 Dining area hit at U.S. military base near Mosul.
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| MOSUL DEATHS | The Pentagon has released the names of those killed in the attack on a military mess hall.
Soldiers
Capt. William W. Jacobsen Jr., 31, of Charlotte, North Carolina, 1st Battalion, 24th Infantry Regiment, 1st Brigade, 25th Infantry Division.
Sgt. Maj. Robert D. O'Dell, 38, of Manassas, Virginia, United States Army Intelligence & Security Command.
Sgt. 1st Class Paul D. Karpowich, 30, of Bridgeport, Pennsylvania, Army Reserve's 2nd Battalion, 390th Infantry Regiment.
Staff Sgt. Julian S. Melo, 47, of Brooklyn, New York, 1st Battalion, 5th Infantry Regiment, 1st Brigade, 25th Infantry Division.
Staff Sgt. Darren D. VanKomen, 33, of Bluefield, West Virginia, 2nd Squadron, 14th Cavalry Regiment, 1st Brigade, 25th Infantry Division.
Staff Sgt. Robert S. Johnson, 23, of Castro Valley, California, 1st Battalion, 24th Infantry Regiment, 1st Brigade, 25th Infantry Division.
Sgt. Lynn R. Poulin Sr., 47, of Freedom, Maine, Army National Guard's 133rd Engineer Battalion.
Spc. Jonathan Castro, 21, of Corona, California, 73rd Engineer Company, 1st Brigade, 25th Infantry Division.
Spc. Thomas J. Dostie, 20, of Sommerville, Maine, Army National Guard's 133rd Engineer Battalion.
Spc. Cory M. Hewitt, 26, of Stewart, Tennessee, 705th Ordnance Company.
Spc. Nicholas C. Mason, 20, of King George, Virginia, Army National Guard's 276th Engineer Battalion.
Spc. David A. Ruhren, 20, of Stafford, Virginia, Army National Guard's 276th Engineer Battalion.
Pfc. Lionel Ayro, 22, of Jeanerette, Louisiana, 73rd Engineer Company, 1st Brigade, 25th Infantry Division.
Sailor
Chief Petty Officer Joel E. Baldwin, 37, of Gulfport, Mississippi, Naval Mobile Construction Battalion 7.
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BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- Investigators believe a bomb worn by a suicide attacker was the likely cause of a blast at a U.S. mess hall in northern Iraq, according to a U.S. military statement Wednesday.
Evidence found during a preliminary investigation at the site includes components normally associated with improvised explosive devices, and there was no physical evidence of a rocket or mortar, according to the statement.
Twenty-two people died in Tuesday's attack, Pentagon officials said.
Lt. Gen. Thomas F. Metz, the commander of U.S. ground forces in Iraq, has ordered investigators "to determine the complete facts and circumstances surrounding the attack," the statement said.
Suicide bombings by insurgents present a security challenge to U.S. forces in Iraq, said Gen. Richard Myers, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, at a Pentagon briefing Wednesday.
"We know how difficult this is, to prevent people bent on suicide," he said.
Earlier Wednesday, Task Force Olympia spokesman Lt. Col. Paul Hastings said stainless steel kitchen equipment inside the tent was pitted with circular holes -- a possible sign of ball bearings used as shrapnel to increase the deadliness of a bomb.
Revising earlier casualty tolls, Wednesday's statement from U.S. commanders in Baghdad said 22 people -- 14 U.S. soldiers, four U.S. civilian contractors, three Iraqi security forces and an unidentified non-American -- died in Tuesday's blast. Sixty-nine people were wounded, including 44 soldiers.
Myers said it was too early to determine whether that unidentified person was the bomber.
Military contractor Halliburton Co. on Wednesday said four employees of its subsidiary Kellogg Brown & Root were killed in the attack, and that 16 other KBR workers or subcontractors were seriously wounded.
Group claims responsibility
Messages on Islamist Web sites said the Iraqi militant group Jaish Ansar Al-Sunna claimed responsibility, calling it a suicide attack carried out by one person. CNN could not confirm the authenticity of the claim.
The group has claimed responsibility for previous attacks, including the beheadings of a Turkish truck driver and a Kurdish official and the slayings of 12 Nepalese hostages. In its statement, it said it shot video of the attack to be released later.
The attack was one of the deadliest single incidents for American troops since the U.S.-led invasion in March 2003, and the one-day toll was the worst since the early days of the invasion.
The military death toll puts the number of U.S. troops killed in the Iraq war at 1,319, according to the U.S. military.
Mosul has been a site of repeated attacks in recent weeks. When the U.S. military launched a major offensive in Falluja in November, there was concern some insurgents fled to Mosul. The military recently conducted an offensive against insurgents there, but violence has continued.
Wounded, dead flown out
A U.S. military cargo plane landed Wednesday night at Ramstein Air Base in southern Germany carrying 40 to 50 wounded troops, most of them casualties from the Mosul attack, military officials said.
Eight troops in critical condition were the first to be carried through the C-141 Starlifter's 10 1/2-foot-wide cargo door and into ambulances parked under the plane's overhang, which protected them from driving snow.
It took more than an hour to remove the casualties from the aircraft, which had been converted into a flying intensive-care unit and had taken off from Baghdad six hours earlier.
The wounded were loaded into ambulances and taken a few miles away to Landstuhl Regional Medical Center.
Medical personnel at the largest U.S. military hospital outside the United States had been recalled from holiday vacations so that the facility would be prepared.
Meanwhile at a desert military base outside of Kuwait City early Wednesday, the bodies of U.S. soldiers killed in the attack arrived on a C-130 cargo plane.
"Very quietly, very deliberately the remains in body bags ... were brought off by the soldiers who saluted their fallen comrades," CNN's Barbara Starr reported. "Eventually the remains will be returned to the United States."
Rise in violence expected
At Wednesday's Pentagon briefing, Myers said Iraqi elections will go ahead as scheduled.
"We are absolutely committed to the January 30 election date" he said. "Seventeen of the 18 provinces can support elections now at more than 5,500 designated polling centers."
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said insurgents would attempt to disrupt the vote, and both he and Myers emphasized that the election would not halt all violence.
"I think looking for a peaceful Iraq after the elections would be a mistake," Rumsfeld said. "I think our expectations level ought to be realistic about that. These folks have a lot to lose."
Rumsfeld defended himself and the progress of the war in Iraq, saying he feels the grief of the families of slain U.S. troops "to my core."
He pointed to an "unambiguous" victory in the Falluja operation, the registration of more than 7,000 candidates for the elections and the return of "hundreds of refugees" to Iraq every week.
But a Maine senator on Wednesday released a letter to Rumsfeld questioning why local contractors, rather than U.S. troops, were building a permanent mess hall at Camp Marez.
"Does the difficulty in ensuring each and every employee of such companies is not tied to insurgent groups and not potentially providing useful targeting information to these groups argue against continuing to employ such firms unless there is no alternative?" wrote Sen. Olympia Snowe, a fellow Republican.
CNN personnel who have visited Camp Marez said the dining area is a tent-like facility with no hardened protection -- and that soldiers had specifically raised concerns that they could be targeted by insurgents at meal time.
Other developments
Two French journalists taken hostage by an Iraqi insurgency group in August and released Tuesday received a joyful greeting as they arrived in Paris on Wednesday. Christian Chesnot, a reporter for Radio France International, and Georges Malbrunot of Le Figaro appeared to be healthy as they stepped off the plane to hugs from friends and relatives. (Full story)Poland's prime minister and defense minister arrived in Iraq on Wednesday on a surprise visit to the country's troops, according to Poland's government. Prime Minister Marek Belka and Defense Minister Jerzy Szmajdzinski met with Iraq interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, before heading to Diwaniya in southern Iraq, where Polish troops are based.
Copyright 2004 CNN. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Associated Press contributed to this report.
