On 19 March this year, the tenth anniversary of George W Bush's declaration of war against Iraq, I was heading into Baghdad's ministry of the interior in search of an official from the inspector general's office who had been involved in the investigation into its purchase of fake bomb detectors. Arriving at the entrance, a bomb – the first of 12 to explode in the city that day – detonated about a
![Fake bomb detectors were being used in Iraq as recently as last month](https://cdn-ak-scissors.b.st-hatena.com/image/square/d91d4647a3a76930921cd94f959670eae3d6e945/height=288;version=1;width=512/https%3A%2F%2Fi.guim.co.uk%2Fimg%2Fstatic%2Fsys-images%2FGuardian%2FPix%2Faudio%2Fvideo%2F2013%2F4%2F23%2F1366740445948%2FJim-McCormick-outside-Old-015.jpg%3Fwidth%3D1200%26height%3D630%26quality%3D85%26auto%3Dformat%26fit%3Dcrop%26overlay-align%3Dbottom%252Cleft%26overlay-width%3D100p%26overlay-base64%3DL2ltZy9zdGF0aWMvb3ZlcmxheXMvdGctYWdlLTIwMTMucG5n%26enable%3Dupscale%26s%3D3115085c862d186e9058d3e92def14d3)