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Three Iraqis, US soldier killed in suicide bombing

* US troops arrest 21 Iraqis, Fedayeen militia commander killed
* Bush phones French, German, and Russian leaders
* Bush, Straw defend barring of contracts, Germany blasts US for decision

RAMADI One US soldier died and 14 others were wounded in a truck bombing at a US base Thursday, as another soldier drowned during a river patrol and US troops detained dozens of insurgents, the military said.

“One soldier killed, 14 wounded,” a spokeswoman in Baghdad said, adding that 11 of the wounded returned to duty but three were taken to a combat field hospital.

“A furniture truck was driven by a suicide bomber” at approximately 1:30 pm (1130 GMT) at Champion Main, 82nd Airborne Division Headquarters, in the vicinity of Ramadi,” a statement said. “It is believed three Iraqis driving the vehicle were killed in the explosion,” another statement said.

The US military on Thursday made dozens of arrests, including 41 men suspected of killing seven Spanish intelligence agents.

Two journalists from the US weekly newsmagazine Time were wounded by a grenade explosion while taking part in a military patrol in Baghdad, a military spokesman said Thursday.

Two Iraqi civil defence force members were wounded Thursday in separate attacks in the Baqubah region.

In Mosul, police said a former commander of the Saddam Fedayeen militia was killed Wednesday and 31 ex-officers arrested after a clash with US forces.

US troops captured three suspected leaders of anti-coalition cells and seized a large weapons cache in a night-time raid early Thursday in Tikrit.

About 300 of the 700 members in the first new Iraqi army battalion set up by the US-led coalition have resigned, a coalition official said Thursday.

US President George W Bush Wednesday called French President Jacques Chirac, Russian President Vladimir Putin, and German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder to talk about Iraqi debt, White House officials said.

The US decision to exclude corporations from countries that opposed the US-led war on Saddam Hussein’s regime in Iraq from bidding on any of the reconstruction projects was also discussed, a White House spokesman said. Iraq’s future depends to a large degree of a quick settlement of its huge foreign debt, US Treasury Secretary John Snow and James Baker, special US envoy for Iraq’s debt, said Wednesday.

The United States was within its rights to bar nations opposed to the Iraq war from bidding for prime reconstruction contracts worth billions of dollars, Britain’s Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said Thursday.

Bush on Thursday defended the decision to cut foes of the Iraq war out of reconstruction contracts, saying monies should go to nations whose soldiers “risked their lives” there.

German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder criticised Thursday the United States for barring countries that opposed the Iraq war from bidding for reconstruction contracts there.

“This is a task for all, and I emphasise all, that want or can be involved,” he told reporters in Berlin after talks with UN Secretary General Kofi Annan.

The Pentagon delayed a major Iraq reconstruction bidders’ conference but denied Thursday any link to the furore provoked by a ban on countries that opposed the war.

Invitations to bid on billions of dollars in business were being re-written to align technical language, said a defense official, forcing an eight-day delay to the conference until December 19. —Agencies

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