WASHINGTON - US President Bush condemned Thursday's attack on Iraq's parliament building inside the heavily fortified Green Zone and said the US must continue to help the Baghdad government reconcile the nation.

US President Bush makes remarks to the press after a meeting on the 'No Child Left Behind' initiative, Thursday, April 12, 2007, in the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington. [AP]

The president said the attack was against a symbol of democracy - the Iraqi assembly that represents millions of people who voted in recent elections.

"There is a type of person that would walk in that building and kill innocent life and that is the same type of person that is willing to come and kill innocent Americans," Bush said in the Roosevelt Room after meeting with educational leaders. "And it is in our interest to help this young democracy be in a position so it can sustain itself and govern itself and defend itself against these extremists and radicals."

Bush met Thursday with Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., who recently visited Iraq.

"My message to the Iraqi government is `We stand with you as you take the steps necessary to not only reconcile politically, but also put a security force in place that is able to deal with these kinds of people,'" Bush said.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the attack showed terrorists were determined to destroy the Iraqi people's dreams of democracy, but did not mean that Bush's troop increase in Iraq had failed.

"This is still early in the process and I don't think anyone expected that there wouldn't be counter-efforts by terrorists to undermine the security presence," she said.

Aboard an aircraft flying home from meetings in Canada, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said, "Nobody ever anticipated you'd have perfect security inside Baghdad, and I think that ... it's premature to talk about it until we have some idea what actually happened and who might have been responsible."

McCain said the bombing could not take away from the initial, small successes of the surge. "It makes all of us sad for these public servants who have been injured or killed, but I don't think you can change the larger picture (that) we are achieving some small successes," said McCain, a presidential candidate who has been a vocal supporter of the war effort.

After meeting with Bush, Graham said the extra US troops are aimed at providing better security to allow the Iraqi government to reconcile the country. He said that he believes that Sunnis, who boycotted the December 2005 elections, would vote if local elections were held today.

"They didn't believe democracy was in their self-interest," Graham said. "There's been a sea change. If we had local elections - by September if possible - I think Sunnis would participate and to me, that would be a giant step forward in terms of democracy."

Congressional Democrats said the bombing was evidence that substantial progress was not being made in the war.

"How the president and people around him can say things are going well is really hard to comprehend," said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev.

Added Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass.: "This is the progress we've been hearing about? And tell me, how are more American troops going to stop a single fanatic with explosives strapped to his chest?"