A second senior US official made a surprise visit to Iraq today in a bid to play up Iraq's political transition, but violence shadowed the trip as nine were killed in a bomb blast.
Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick arrived less than a day after US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld made an unannounced visit, his ninth since the 2003 invasion, and warned Iraq's new leaders against any abuse of office.
Shortly after Mr Zoellick's arrival a bomb blew up near the oil city of Kirkuk as a group of Iraqi guards was trying to defuse it, killing nine and wounding four, the local police chief said.
In Baghdad there was a series of explosions, including a bomb that struck an oil tanker sending thick clouds of black smoke pouring into the air over the east of the capital.
Another bomb detonated on the road to the airport, wounding seven Iraqis.
The attacks again underscored the intense security challenges facing Iraq's newly elected leaders, who are still deliberating over the formation of a government more than two months after an election in late January.
"We are obviously, in the aftermath of this election, in a key period of political formation," Mr Zoellick told reporters earlier on his military aircraft.
"This is a process of political transition, the formation of Iraqi democracy," he said. Shortly after his arrival in Baghdad, Mr Zoellick travelled to Falluja, west of the capital and the site of some of the worst unrest in Iraq over the past two years.
There he discussed reconstruction with US troops helping rebuild the city after a big US offensive last November which left much of it in ruins.
Mr Zoellick, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's top deputy, was due to meet President Jalal Talabani and Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari, as well as other officials, in Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone.