BAGHDAD — Iran angrily blamed the United States on Friday after at least three of its diplomats were wounded in a Baghdad shooting, saying the Americans are encouraging attacks on Iranians in Iraq.

The United States defended the actions of Iraqi security forces, but said Americans were not involved in the incident and that the U.S. "condemns any attack on guests or visitors of any country."

The shooting _ which may have been by Iraqi soldiers during an argument at a checkpoint _ comes amid unprecedented strains between Iran and the Iraqi leadership, which has long been close to Tehran.

With the U.S. and an emboldened Tehran jostling for power and influence in Iraq and elsewhere in the Mideast, Iranian officials have complained in recent weeks that Iraq's Shiite-dominated leadership is bowing too much to Washington. The tensions have been fueled in part by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's crackdowns in the past two months against Shiite militiamen. The U.S. accuses Iran of backing the militiamen, a claim Tehran denies.

The shooting occurred Thursday as the Iranians' convoy approached a bridge leading to a Shiite shrine in the northern Baghdad neighborhood of Kazimiyah.

An Interior Ministry official said Iraqi soldiers at a checkpoint on the bridge exchanged fire with the convoy's guards during an argument that broke out when most of the Iranians failed to produce identification cards. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the press.

A different account came from an Iraqi military spokesman in Baghdad, Qassim Atta, who said "unknown gunmen" were behind the attack.

Iranian Embassy spokesman Manoucher Taslimi said he did not know who the gunmen were.

There were varying reports on how many were wounded.

Taslimi said two Iranian diplomats, another Iranian and an Iraqi administrative employee were wounded and were now in stable condition. The Iraqi ministry official said five people were wounded.

Lt. David Russell, a U.S. military spokesman in Baghdad, said the Iraqi army had found four wounded Iranians in a vehicle with an Iraqi driver.

Reports indicate Iraqi security forces "handled the situation appropriately and with a high degree of professionalism," Russell said in an e-mailed statement.

In Tehran, Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini criticized the United States, saying its harsh rhetoric against Iran fuels attacks on Iranians. U.S. statements "encourage inhuman behavior by occupiers and terrorist groups active in Iraq," he said.

"Responsibility for providing security to diplomats as well as diplomatic and international bodies in Iraq rests with the occupiers. The suspicious behavior of U.S. forces in security issues has brought increasing insecurity in Iraq," he said in a statement. Hosseini said Iran will pursue the case with the Iraqi government.

The U.S. military said in a statement that the Americans were "in no way involved in this attack" and that it "condemns any attack on guests or visitors of any country."

The United States accuses Iran of financing and arming so-called "Special Groups," Shiite militant cells involved in attacks on American troops.

The U.S.-Iranian dispute over the militants has pulled in al-Maliki's government, whose Shiite members have strong ties to Iran. In March, al-Maliki launched a crackdown on Shiite militants in Basra; the operation flared into several weeks of fighting across southern Iraq and in the Shiite stronghold of Sadr City in Baghdad.

When an Iraqi delegation visited Iran to seek its support in the crackdown, they were scolded by Iranian officials, according to several Iraqi officials in the delegation. The Iranians accused the Iraqis of being tools of Washington and allowing U.S. troops to set up a permanent presence on Iran's doorstep.

Al-Maliki has followed the crackdowns against Shiite militiamen in Basra and Sadr City with a sweep launched Thursday in the northern city of Mosul aimed at rooting out Sunni al-Qaida in Iraq militants.

On Friday, al-Maliki offered amnesty and cash to fighters in Mosul who surrender their weapons. He said he would give 10 days for armed groups to hand over medium and heavy weapons for monetary compensation, as well as amnesty for those "duped" into taking up arms against the government _ so long as they did not "have blood on their hands."

Al-Maliki had made a similar offer to Shiite militias in Basra, but few surrendered weapons.

Mosul, 225 miles northwest of Baghdad, has been the most prominent urban stronghold of the terror network in recent months after its grip was broken in cities of the western province on Anbar.

Like the Shiite militiamen in Basra, al-Qaida's Sunni militants are believed to have infiltrated many levels of life in Mosul, Iraq's third largest city with some 2 million people. Al-Maliki warned on Thursday that many city employees were paying protection money to al-Qaida in Iraq.

The director of the provincial governor's office, police Capt. Ahmed Abdullah, was arrested Thursday, said Duraid Kashmola, the governor of Ninevah province, where Mosul is the capital. He would not say whether the arrest was part of the sweep or whether Abdullah was suspected of al-Qaida ties.

In Mosul on Friday, police and army checkpoints were deployed at major roads as U.S.-backed Iraqi forces conducted house-to-house searches and raids for suspects. There have been no clashes since the operation officially began on Thursday, or in the days of raids proceeding it.

Iraqi troops were also chasing suspected al-Qaida fighters who fled the northern city to areas on the outskirts ahead of the sweep. In past major crackdowns, many al-Qaida in Iraq members have managed to scatter after public warnings that an assault was imminent.

Brig. Gen. Khalid Abdul-Sattar, the provincial police spokesman, said more than 800 people have been arrested in and around Mosul over the past five days. He said it was unknown how many al-Qaida figures remain.

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Associated Press writer Ali Akbar Dareini in Tehran, Iran, contributed to this report.

WASHINGTON — President Bush's contentious nominee for the Federal Election Commission removed his name from consideration Friday, potentially ending a lengthy stalemate that had paralyzed the work of the agency.

Hans von Spakovsky, a former Justice Department official who never had Democratic support to win confirmation, withdrew his nomination, saying it was time for the protracted deadlock to end.

Bush "reluctantly accepted" von Spakovsky's request, the White House said.

Democrats have objected to von Spakovsky's tenure at Justice, where he oversaw voting rights matters. The standoff has held up other Senate confirmations to the six-member FEC, which is without a quorum and has been unable to conduct business.

In a letter to Bush, von Spakovsky said the long-stalled process has been extremely hard on his family. "And quite frankly, we do not have the financial resources to continue to wait until this matter is resolved," he wrote.

He added: "The agency that is tasked with policing our campaign finance system needs to be operational during a presidential election year. The opposition to my nomination (however unfair) is preventing that from happening."

Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., welcomed von Spakovsky's withdrawal. Democrats have charged that von Spakovsky tried to suppress voter participation through new restrictions such as voter identification laws and voter roll purges.

"Democrats stood united in their opposition to von Spakovsky because of his long and well-documented history of working to suppress the rights of minorities and the elderly to vote," Reid said. "He was not qualified to hold any position of trust in our government."

Senate Republicans, however, argued that a recent Supreme court ruling upholding a strict Indiana voter identification law vindicated von Spakovsky's stance on the issue.

Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky blamed Democrats for obstructing what he called "a highly qualified nominee to the FEC."

"Once again, liberal interest groups did their best to manufacture controversy and, once again, Senate Democrats played along," McConnell said in a statement.

Bush sent the Senate a new slate of FEC nominees this month, retaining von Spakovsky but withdrawing the nomination of FEC Chairman David Mason.

Mason had clashed in the past with presumed Republican presidential nominee John McCain.

The Senate could vote on the remaining four nominees awaiting confirmation or wait until Bush nominates a replacement for von Spakovsky. The commission consists of six members _ three from each party. It takes four votes on the commission to act, meaning that even with a 3-2 advantage, Democrats would need one Republican to avoid a deadlock.

The FEC has unfinished business before it, including final action on regulations governing candidate air travel as well as new rules on lobbyist fundraisers and joint advertising by national parties and federal candidates.

Also pending is action on McCain's decision to bypass public matching funds during the primary. Mason had informed McCain that he needed commission approval before withdrawing. Without a quorum, the FEC was unable to act. Mason also said McCain needed to explain the terms of a loan he obtained before he won the early primaries.

Richard L. Hasen, a law professor at the Loyola Law School in Los Angeles, said the most important action by the FEC is a "non-controversial and ministerial act" _ approving requests for public financing by presidential candidates. McCain is expected to ask for the $84 million available this year for the general election.

"It would be a terrible situation for a candidate wanting to get public financing to not be able to get it," Hasen said.

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Associated Press writer Jim Kuhnhenn contributed to this report.

WASHINGTON — In President Bush's hint that Barack Obama wants to appease terrorists, Democrats heard troubling echoes of 2004, when Republicans portrayed John Kerry as irresolute and weak on national security.

Determined to end the similarities there, Obama and his allies counterattacked Friday with a multi-pronged response that was as fast and fierce as Kerry's response to the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth ads was slow and uncertain.

And while the Democrats' first-day responses focused on Bush's speech this week in Israel, Friday's reactions mainly targeted John McCain, the GOP presidential candidate who seemed largely on the sidelines at first.

Obama, appearing unusually feisty and at times sarcastic, led the countercharge himself. Campaigning in South Dakota, he departed from planned remarks to rebuke Bush and McCain, and then called a news conference for a second dose.

"I was offended by what is a continuation of a strategy from this White House, now mimicked by Senator McCain, that replaces strategy and analysis and smart policy with bombast, exaggerations and fear-mongering," the Illinois senator said.

Bush's speech Thursday to the Israeli parliament, he said, wasn't about policy.

"It was about politics, about trying to scare the American people," Obama said. "And that's what will not work in this election because the American people can look back at the track record of George Bush, supported by John McCain," and conclude that the nation was misled about the Iraq war's justification, cost, length and benefit to America.

For four years, Democrats have regretted Kerry's halting response to the so-called Swiftboat ads, aired by Bush supporters at a crucial time in their 2004 presidential contest. The ads portrayed Kerry, a decorated Vietnam War veteran, as dishonest and "unfit for command."

Many politicians, including McCain, condemned the ads, and some stations quit airing them. But the $25 million campaign triggered conversations on talk radio, TV programs and front porches nationwide. Swiftboat became part of the political vernacular.

The ads not only undermined Kerry's personal image. They helped divert attention from the Iraq war, whose unpopularity was growing, and they shifted the debate on national security to a broader, more personalized framework that benefited Bush.

Democratic strategists say Bush is trying to give McCain a blueprint for the same tactic, and they are determined to respond more promptly and forcefully.

"Like Bush, McCain knows that he needs to make the election less about the past conduct of the war," said Stephanie Cutter, who was Kerry's 2004 campaign spokeswoman. "He'll go after Obama's trustworthiness, just like Bush went after Kerry's."

But Obama, she said, has shown that he "can give as good as he gets by making McCain responsible for Bush's failures and calling him out for his politically expedient flip-flopping."

The Democratic counterattack against McCain began in earnest early Friday, with a Washington Post op-ed piece touching on Hamas, a Palestinian militant group that the United States considers a terrorist organization. Former Clinton administration State Department official James Rubin wrote that McCain, responding to a TV interview question two years ago about whether U.S. diplomats should work with the Hamas government in Gaza, said:

"They're the government; sooner or later we are going to have to deal with them, one way or another," despite their unpalatable record. Rubin said McCain is "guilty of hypocrisy" and is "smearing" Obama.

The McCain campaign accused Rubin of airing an incomplete portion of the interview but focused its response Friday on Iran, not Hamas.

Campaign spokesman Tucker Bounds said Obama "has pledged to unconditionally meet with Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad _ who pledges to wipe Israel off the map, denies the Holocaust, sponsors terrorists, arms America's enemies in Iraq and pursues nuclear weapons."

McCain used similar words himself in a speech to the National Rifle Association in Louisville, Ky.

"It is reckless to suggest that unconditional meetings will advance our interests" with Iran, he said.

Obama has said he would pursue talks with Iran without insisting on "preconditions" that would likely prompt Iranian leaders to spurn the request.

Bush started the brouhaha, which dominated Friday's campaign news, with Thursday's speech to Israel's Knesset. After mentioning the president of Iran, he said: "Some seem to believe that we should negotiate with the terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along."

"We have heard this foolish delusion before," Bush said. "As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: 'Lord, if I could only have talked to Hitler, all this might have been avoided.' We have an obligation to call this what it is _ the false comfort of appeasement.'"

It's unclear whether the 2008 campaign will feature attacks comparable to the Swiftboat ads. But if it does, the response is almost certain to be quicker and angrier than anything seen four years ago.

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EDITOR'S NOTE: Charles Babington covers the presidential campaign for The Associated Press.

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