Roadside bombs kill 4 U.S. soldiers in Iraq

Story Highlights

• Bush meeting with State Department officials, historians, generals
• Iraqi politicians reportedly working behind scenes to realign government
• Gunmen take $1 million in an ambush of a security vehicle in Baghdad
• Fifty-one bullet-riddled bodies found scattered around Baghdad

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BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- The U.S. military said Monday that four American soldiers were killed and three wounded by two roadside bombs Sunday in Baghdad as suspected sectarian violence cost another 51 Iraqis their lives.

A roadside bomb exploded near a late-night combat patrol in northern Baghdad, killing three U.S. soldiers and wounding two others, the military said.

Earlier Sunday, a roadside bomb exploded as a U.S. Army patrol was completing a security mission west of the city, killing one soldier and wounding another, the military said.

The number of U.S. troops killed in the Iraq war stands at 2,925. Seven American civilian contractors of the military also have died in the conflict.

Fifty-one bullet-riddled bodies were collected Sunday across the Iraqi capital, victims of what an Iraqi Interior Ministry official said was sectarian retribution between Sunnis and Shiites.

The official also said gunmen killed Iraqi army Col. Yaarub Khazaal, who worked on the security detail for former Iraqi exile Ahmed Chalabi. The killing happened Sunday in western Baghdad's Yarmouk neighborhood, the official said.

Chalabi was instrumental in building the U.S. case during the run-up to the war but later fell out of favor with the Bush administration.

Violence continued Monday with at least three bombings that killed three people in Baghdad.

Bush seeks input on Iraq

President Bush is holding meetings Monday with State Department officials, historians and former generals as he looks for opinions outside the Iraq Study Group to help form a strategy forward in Iraq, The Associated Press reported.

The president plans to unveil a new strategy by Christmas.

On Tuesday, Bush will meet via video conference with senior military commanders and the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, and then host Iraqi Vice President Tariq al-Hashemi in the Oval Office, AP reported. On Wednesday, he meets with officials at the Pentagon.

Last week, Bush met with Shiite political leader Abdul Aziz Hakim, members of the bipartisan Iraq Study Group, British Prime Minister Tony Blair, plus lawmakers from the armed services, intelligence and foreign relations committees.

"This is unusually intensive, as you would expect, given the situation we find ourselves in," White House counselor Dan Bartlett said Sunday. ( Full story)

Other developments

Iraqi politicians dissatisfied with Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's progress against sectarian violence are working behind the scenes to replace his government, the AP reported. "The failure of the government has forced us into this in the hope that it can provide a solution," lawmaker Omar Abdul-Sattar told the AP. Abdul-Sattar is from the Iraqi Islamic Party, which is led by Vice President Tariq al-Hashemi. (Full story)

At least 20 gunmen swiped $1 million Monday in central Baghdad after ambushing a security vehicle transporting money between banks, an Iraq Interior Ministry official said. Wearing Iraqi army-like uniforms, the gunmen kidnapped the vehicle's driver and three private security guards, put the cash in sacks and left the security vehicle behind, the official said. The gunmen were driving in three vehicles.

Iraqi President Jalal Talabani rejected the Iraq Study Group's report Sunday, calling it "very dangerous" to Iraq's sovereignty and constitution. "We can smell in it the attitude of James Baker," Talabani said, referring to the report's co-chairman who was secretary of state under President George H.W. Bush during the 1991 Persian Gulf War. Talabani blamed Baker for leaving then-Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein in power after that conflict, which ousted Iraqi troops from Kuwait.

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