Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki called for Kirkuk elections before the parliamentary vote next January. Meanwhile, former U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell said in an interview that the surge in American troops in Iraq should have come much earlier, perhaps as early as 2003. Coincidently, Iraqis themselves are skeptical about the subsequent U.S. pullback. Overall, at least six Iraqis were killed and 23 more were wounded in the latest attacks.