WASHINGTON — Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said Thursday the war in Iraq is "lost," triggering an angry backlash by Republicans who said the top Democrat had turned his back on the troops.

The bleak assessment was the sharpest yet from Reid, who has vowed to send President Bush legislation calling for combat to end next year. Reid said he told Bush on Wednesday that he thought the war could not be won through military force and only through political, economic and diplomatic means.

"I believe myself that the secretary of state, secretary of defense and — you have to make your own decisions as to what the president knows — (know) this war is lost and the surge is not accomplishing anything as indicated by the extreme violence in Iraq yesterday," said Reid, D-Nev.

Republicans pounced on the comment as evidence, they said, that Democrats do not support the troops.

"I can' t begin to imagine how our troops in the field, who are risking their lives every day, are going to react when they get back to base and hear that the Democrat leader of the United States Senate has declared the war is lost," said Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.

ATTORNEY GENERAL FACES CALLS TO RESIGN

WASHINGTON — Attorney General Alberto Gonzales confronted a fresh Republican call for his resignation Thursday as he struggled to survive a withering, bipartisan Senate attack on his credibility in the case of eight fired prosecutors.

"The best way to put this behind us is your resignation," Sen. Tom Coburn bluntly told Gonzales — one GOP conservative to another — at a daylong Senate Judiciary Committee hearing.

Gonzales disagreed and told the Oklahoma senator he didn't know that his departure would put the controversy to rest. "I am committed to working with you in trying to restore the faith and confidence you need to work with me," he said.

The exchange punctuated a long day in the witness chair for the attorney general, who doggedly advanced a careful, lawyerly defense of the dismissals of the federal prosecutors. He readily admitted mistakes, yet told lawmakers he had "never sought to deceive them," and added he would make the same firings decision again.

"At the end of the day I know I did not do anything improper," he said.

12 KILLED AS SUICIDE BOMBER STRIKES BAGHDAD

BAGHDAD — A suicide bomber slipped past security barriers to kill 12 people Thursday, the latest in a wave of attacks that have shown the resilience of insurgents in the face of a U.S.-led crackdown on major violence in Iraq' s capital.

The attack in a mostly Shiite district showed yet again the ability of insurgents to penetrate Baghdad' s heavy security presence, a day after more than 230 people died in the worst spasm of mass killings since President Bush announced his plan in January to increase American troop levels in Iraq by 30,000.

Iraq' s prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, said an "open battle" was being waged for control of his nation.

Thursday' s attacker blew himself up next to a fuel tanker within 500 yards of Iraqi President Jalal Talabani' s home in the Karradah district. Talabani, a Kurd, was not believed to have been the target. Two Iraqi soldiers were among the dead, and 34 people were wounded, police said.

U.S. commanders urged patience, saying the nine-week operation was still just beginning. Three of the five brigades Bush ordered into Iraq to stem Baghdad violence have arrived, bringing the U.S. forces in the country to 146,000. Officials want the rest in place by June for a total of 160,000.

CALIF. LAWMAKER RESIGNS COMMITTEE POST

WASHINGTON — Rep. John Doolittle, whose house was searched by the FBI in an influence-peddling investigation, said Thursday he will step down temporarily from the House Appropriations Committee.

The announcement by the nine-term California Republican came one day after the disclosure that agents had raided his home in Oakton, Va. In the search last Friday, the FBI had a warrant for information connected with a fundraising business run by Doolittle' s wife, Julie, that had done work for convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

"I understand how the most recent circumstances may lead some to question my tenure on the Appropriations Committee," Doolittle wrote House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio.

"Therefore, I feel it may be in the best interest of the House that I take a temporary leave with seniority from this committee until this matter can be resolved."

Doolittle' s ties to Abramoff have come under scrutiny in the corruption investigation that has sent one former Republican congressman, Bob Ney of Ohio, to prison on a guilty plea to charges of conspiracy and making false statements, and produced convictions against two senior Bush administration officials and several congressional aides.

MANHUNT ON AFTER STUDENT TORTURED 19 HOURS

NEW YORK — It was an ordeal that lasted 19 hours. In that span, a man bound a Columbia University graduate student in her apartment, raped her, doused her with hot water and bleach, slit her eyelids and finally set a fire before fleeing, police said.

Police pressed a manhunt for the assailant in the April 13 attack, with investigators hoping any surviving DNA and a $12,000 reward for information leading to an arrest would produce fresh leads.

The victim, who managed to free herself before the fire spread, was still in the hospital Thursday, police said.

The woman was nearing her degree at the Graduate School of Journalism when the attack occurred at her apartment more than 20 blocks north of the Ivy League campus in upper Manhattan, classmates have said. Dozens paid tribute to her Monday with a candlelight vigil.

Female students throughout the school were rattled, especially because the attacker was still on the loose, said Lindsay Miller, 23, an architecture student who, like the victim, lives several blocks from the campus.

RABIES TREATMENT HELPS 1 TEEN, FAILS WITH OTHERS

ATLANTA — An unusual drug combination that helped an unvaccinated teenager survive rabies has failed to save three other infected children, federal health officials reported Thursday.

It wasn't clear why the treatment succeeded with one child and failed with the others. Factors could include the strain of the virus, the dosing of the drugs and the time between infection and treatment, said Dr. Charles Rupprecht, chief of the rabies program at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

"We believe speed is of the essence," said Rupprecht, a co-author of a report in this week' s issue of the CDC' s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

Rabies is a viral disease most often transmitted through the bite of an infected animal. It attacks the central nervous system and, if untreated, can lead to anxiety, confusion, paralysis, hypersalivation, difficulty swallowing, and fear of water. Death usually occurs within a week of the onset of symptoms.

In October 2004, a 15-year-old Wisconsin girl, Jeanna Giese, was hospitalized a month after she was bitten by a bat in church. She recovered after Milwaukee doctors used drugs to induce a coma and then gave her antiviral medications including ribavirin, ketamine and amantadine.

SANJAYA LOOKS FORWARD TO LIFE AFTER 'IDOL'

LOS ANGELES — Sanjaya Malakar said Thursday he did it his way on "American Idol" and he'll take the same approach to a career that he hopes will encompass music, acting, modeling and whatever else comes his way.

The morning after Malakar was voted off Fox' s hit show, the 17-year-old with the unique hairdos and hotly debated singing talent sounded tired but composed as he fielded questions during a teleconference.

Malakar, from Washington state, said he was surprised by the outpouring of support he received — "I' m just Sanjaya from Federal Way. ... I mean, it' s crazy."

As for critics, he avoided letting the potshots get to him.