Nine U.S. soldiers killed in suicide car bombing

The new U.S. ambassador to Iraq defended construction of a barrier in Baghdad.
BAGHDAD (AP) -- Nine U.S. soldiers were killed and 20 were wounded Monday in a suicide car bombing against a patrol base northeast of Baghdad, the military said.
The attack occurred in Diyala province, a volatile area that has been the site of fierce fighting involving U.S. and Iraqi troops, Sunni insurgents and Shiite militias.
Meanwhile, U.S. officials signaled Monday that they might reconsider putting a three-mile concrete barrier around a Sunni Arab neighborhood in Baghdad after Iraq's struggling prime minister came under pressure from Sunnis and ordered the project halted.
Plans for the separation barrier to protect the Azamiyah neighborhood were in doubt after Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki criticized the idea of creating "gated communities" to separate Baghdad's sectarian neighborhoods.
Speaking during a tour of Sunni-led Arab countries, the Shiite Muslim prime minister said he did not want the 12-foot-high wall planned for Azamiyah to be seen as dividing the capital's sects.
The new American ambassador to Iraq, Ryan Crocker, defended the barrier plan Monday, saying it was an effort to protect the Sunni community from surrounding Shiite areas, not to segregate it.
Holding his first news conference since taking his post, Crocker said security measures were implemented in coordination with the Iraqi government. "Obviously, we will respect the wishes of the government and the prime minister," he said, although he did not say construction would halt.
Legislation
Democratic leaders agreed Monday on legislation that requires the first U.S. combat troops to be withdrawn from Iraq by Oct. 1 with a goal of a complete pullout six months later.
"No more will Congress turn a blind eye to the Bush administration's incompetence and dishonesty," Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said in a speech in which he accused the president of living in a state of denial about events in Iraq more than four years after the U.S.-led invasion.
Bush, confident of enough votes to sustain a veto, was unambiguous in his response. "I will strongly reject an artificial timetable [for] withdrawal and/or Washington politicians trying to tell those who wear the uniform how to do their job," he told reporters in the Oval Office as he met with his top Iraq commander, Gen. David Petraeus.
Taken together, the day's events marked the quickening of a confrontation that has been building since Democrats took control of Congress in January and promised to change policy in a war has claimed the lives of more than 3,200 U.S. troops.
Democratic aides said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Reid hope to clear the measure through both houses by Friday and send it to Bush by early next week for his expected veto.
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