Bombing at Iraqi Parliament Kills 8

Emergency services look for survivors next to a collapsed bridge in Baghdad, Iraq, Thursday, April 12, 2007. A suicide truck bomb exploded on a major al-Sarafiya bridge in Baghdad early Thursday, collapsing the steel structure and sending cars toppling into the Tigris river below, police and witnesses said. At least 10 people were killed and 26 injured, according to hospital officials. (AP Photo/Hadi Mizban) (Hadi Mizban - AP)

Nevertheless, it would be the second time in less than a month that a bodyguard wearing a suicide vest attacked a Sunni official. On March 23 a member of Deputy Prime Minister Salam al-Zubaie's security detail exploded his suicide vest and seriously wounded al-Zubaie, the highest-ranking Sunni in the Iraqi government.

Security officials told The Associated Press then that the bodyguard was a distant relative who had been arrested as an insurgent, freed at al-Zubaie's request, then hired as a bodyguard. At the time, the assassination attempt was at least the third major security breach involving a top politician in four months.

The parliament security officials, who spoke Thursday on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to release the information, said two satchel bombs also were found in the parliament building near the dining hall. A U.S. military bomb squad took the explosives away and detonated them without incident, the officials said.

Caldwell said eight were dead in the blast, but hours after the bombing Iraqi officials were giving wildly varying accounts of how many people died and who they were. The government never gave a final death toll Thursday.

President Bush strongly condemned the attack, saying: "My message to the Iraqi government is `We stand with you.'"

"It reminds us, though, that there is an enemy willing to bomb innocent people in a symbol of democracy," he said.

But congressional Democrats said the attack was evidence that substantial progress was not being made in the war.

"How the president and people around him can say things are going well is really hard to comprehend," said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.

"This is the progress we've been hearing about?" asked Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass. "And tell me, how are more American troops going to stop a single fanatic with explosives strapped to his chest?"

Congress has passed bills that would force the Bush administration to set a timetable for withdrawing American troops. Bush has said he would veto any such measure and that American forces need more time to curb the raging violence.

Hours after the bombing, Iraqi officials including Deputy Prime Minister Barham Saleh met with the commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus, and decided to put the Interior Ministry in charge of security at parliament, government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said. The building was previously guarded by a private security company, he said.

Petraeus issued a statement saying the U.S. military extended condolences to those "martyred" in the bombing. It was "an attack on democracy by individuals who oppose the concept of government that is representative of and responsible to the people," he said.