US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice has ordered government agents to ride with the Blackwater escorts of diplomatic convoys in Baghdad after a shooting in which private guards were accused of killing 13 Iraqi civilians.

Gordon Brown today acknowledged that mistakes had been made in the handling of Iraq following the 2003 war, and did not rule out a future inquiry into what went wrong.

Prime Minister Nouri Maliki presented his 28-point national reconciliation plan to parliament today, a document that calls for setting a timeline for Iraqi troops to take control of security throughout the country.

The chief of the US Army Reserve said he has ordered a study of whether reservists are sufficiently trained in ethical conduct and how to treat prisoners following the release of photographs allegedly showing Iraqi PoWs being abused by US soldiers.

An explosion in front of the offices of a Kurdish political party in the northern oil city of Kirkuk, killed four people, an official of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan said.