PUTTING SUNDAY'S TRUCK BOMBING INTO PERSPECTIVE

Sunday's massive truck bombing in Baghdad, which took at least 24 lives and wounded 60, was surely a dreadful tragedy - but hardly the success its perpetrators sought.

That's because the bombers failed to get into what was almost certainly their target: the main Coalition compound.

Stringent security protocols at the entrance did what they were supposed to - so the bombers had to detonate their half-ton of explosives some 50 feet outside the gate to the Coalition Provisional Authority's headquarters.

Alas, this meant some 200 Iraqi civilians awaiting entrance to the area, including Coalition staff and folks seeking work, took the full force of the blast.

The results were horrific. But had the bombers managed to penetrate the checkpoint and detonate the bomb near a building filled with Coalition workers and troops, it might have been not just a human tragedy, but also a setback for the whole U.S.-led effort in Iraq.

Instead, the bombing - no doubt timed to coincide with talks between Coalition Provisional Authority head L. Paul Bremer, delegates from the Iraqi Governing Council and U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan - is unlikely to make much of a dent in U.S. policy in Iraq.

Nor does the bombing at the "Assassins Gate" (named for the first unit to control the area - A Company of the 4/64 Armored Regiment) indicate in the least that the Coalition is "losing" the counter-terrorist and counter-insurgency campaign.

Though this is the deadliest single terrorist strike in Iraq since the one on an Italian base in November, attacks on Coalition forces have dropped significantly since the capture of Saddam Hussein last month.