Baghdad ? Attackers paid $10,000 to get a bomb-laden truck past checkpoints and next to the Iraqi Finance Ministry in last week’s attacks, one of the suspected masterminds said in a confession broadcast Sunday.

Seeking to fend off widespread criticism over security lapses, the Iraqi military released what it said was the confession of a Sunni man it identified as the planner of one of the two suicide truck bombings targeting government buildings in Baghdad.

Iraqi lawmakers and other senior officials have traded blame and called for investigations into how the bombers were able to get the explosives-packed trucks so close to government institutions in the heart of the capital.

Maj. Gen. Qassim al-Moussawi, the chief military spokesman for Baghdad, said the man was a senior member of Saddam Hussein’s ousted Baath Party who had confessed to supervising the attack against the Finance Ministry before his lawyer and the chief prosecutor.

Wednesday’s twin bombings, which also devastated the Foreign Ministry, have battered Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s efforts to portray himself as a champion of security before January’s parliamentary elections.