to Iraq and expresses support for an Arab League conference discussing cooperation with Iraq's many factions. (BBC) Four people die following a car bomb in Baghdad. November 13 – Iraqi president Jalal Talabani tells British television that Iraqi troops could replace UK forces by the close of 2006. November 15 – 173 prisoners are found in an Iraqi government bunker in Baghdad, having been starved, beaten and tortured. November 18 - A series of suicide bombings kill 74 Shia worshippers at two Shi'ite mosques in the town of Khanaqin in religiously-mixed Diyala, destroying the structures. 80 people were also wounded. In Baghdad two car bombs destroy the blast wall protecting a hotel housing foreign journalists and kill eight Iraqis. Two car bombs strike outside a Baghdad interior ministry building at the centre of a detainee abuse scandal. The United States House of Representatives reject a Republican resolution offered by Duncan Hunter (R-California) "expressing the sense of the House of Representatives that the deployment of United States forces in Iraq be terminated immediately" by a vote of 403-3. Ohio Republican Jean Schmidt is forced by Democratic (and quiet Republican) protests to apologise to Pennsylvania Democrat John Murtha for reading a letter from a marine in which those wishing to "cut and run" from Iraq are called "cowards". November 19 – In a speech to U.S. troops in South Korea, U.S. President George W. Bush rejects calls for a timetable for withdrawing US troops from Iraq, laying out why he believes the American presence in Iraq should continue. November 20 – At least forty people died following a series of insurgent and American led attacks. The Independent reports that British-trained police tortured and killed at least two Iraqis using electric drills. One British soldier dies following a roadside Bomb in Basra, southern Iraq. November 21 – Five Iraqi civilians, including three children, are shot dead by U.S. troops as they approached a checkpoint in Baquba. The minibus they were travelling in failed to stop as it approached a roadblock. Arab League members demand a timetable for the withdrawal of coalition troops from Iraq. November 23 – One suicide car bomber kills 18 people, mostly Iraqi police in an ambush in the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk. The Prime minister of Italy, Silvio Berlusconi, states that the Italian Army could leave Iraq by the end of 2006. November 24 – 15 people die