Senator Edward Kennedy and other Democrats assailed President George Bush’s decision to go to war with Iraq today and declared they would oppose Condoleezza Rice’s nomination as Secretary of State as a principal architect of a failed policy.

A US soldier, an eight-year-old Iraqi child, and a pro-American mayor and his son were killed yesterday as pro-Saddam Hussein insurgents unleashed a string of violent attacks on the eve of a recently banned Ba'ath Party holiday.