Civilian Toll in Iraq At 'Higher Levels'

The legislators took action after an incident in the parliament building lobby Sunday morning. Legislator Firyad Mohammed Omar, a Shiite, was pushed, beaten and briefly detained by Mashhadani's guards, said Firyad Rwandzi, a spokesman for the Kurdish alliance in parliament. A Sunni legislator called the account exaggerated.

On Monday, the U.S. military confirmed that three American soldiers were killed Sunday and six others wounded when a suicide car bomber attacked in Mahmudiyah, about 15 miles south of Baghdad. An interpreter was injured in the attack, which destroyed part of a highway overpass.

Insurgent attacks on highways and bridges have occurred with increasing regularity in recent months inside and outside Baghdad. On Monday, Iraqi police said, a truck bomb blew up in a suicide attack on the al-Tahrir Bridge, an important transit point over the Diyala River north of the capital.

British Finance Minister Gordon Brown, who takes over as prime minister on June 27, made an unannounced visit to Iraq Monday for what he termed a "fact-finding" mission to "listen and learn" about the country's security and political situation, he told reporters traveling with him.

Brown met with several senior Iraqi and U.S. officials, including Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, President Jalal Talabani, U.S. Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker and the top U.S. military commander in Iraq, Gen. David H. Petraeus.

Partlow reported from Baghdad. Correspondent John Ward Anderson and special correspondent Naseer Nouri in Baghdad contributed to this report.