BAGHDAD, Iraq – Shiite and Kurdish officials reported progress yesterday in resolving disagreements over territorial issues and Cabinet posts, but said they may need another week to put together Iraq’s coalition government.

In violence around Iraq, six American soldiers were wounded in the northern city of Mosul when a convoy was attacked by a car bomber, Captain Patricia Brewer said in Baghdad. According to a witness, Faisal Qasim, the bombing was carried out by a suicide bomber who slammed his car into a convoy of seven armored vehicles, striking the fourth.

Nearly two months after they braved death to vote, many Iraqis are growing frustrated over the slow pace of the talks to form a new government.

“These negotiations included many things, not just the Kurdish issues, but also regarding the shape of the Iraqi government,” said Barham Saleh, the interim deputy prime minister, a Kurd.

A day after the opening of Iraq’s first freely elected parliament in a half century, outgoing American Ambassador John Negroponte returned to America after a near nine-month stint.

“The job is far from done, but there is a principle perhaps each of us has experienced in our own lives: what is begun well, ends well, and the January 30 election was certainly a good beginning,” Mr. Negroponte said earlier this week during a farewell dinner.

Mr. Negroponte has been named to serve as American director of national intelligence. Charge d’affaires James Jeffrey will take over the Baghdad post temporarily. Administration officials say President Bush will likely replace Mr. Negroponte with Zalmay Khalilzad, an Afghan-American serving as the American ambassador to Afghanistan.

The latest setback came after Kurdish politicians reportedly insisted on amending a deal they struck last week with the Shiite-dominated United Iraqi Alliance. They agreed, however, to go ahead with a ceremony Wednesday swearing in the 275-seat National Assembly elected January 30.

But the deputies failed to set a date to reconvene, did not elect a speaker, or nominate a president and vice president – all of which they had hoped to do their first day. Instead, the session was spent reveling in the seating of Iraq’s first democratic legislature in a half-century.

The failure to appoint top officials stemmed from the inability of Shiites, Kurds, and Sunni Arabs to agree on a speaker for the new legislature, disagreement over the oil-rich northern city of Kirkuk, and renewed haggling over Cabinet posts.

The interim constitution sets no time limit for forming a government after the National Assembly convenes.

“We will be seeing a government formed next week,” predicted Haitham al-Husseiny, who heads the office of Shiite alliance leader Abdel Aziz al-Hakim, but he would not give a firm date.

Azad Jundiyan, a spokesman for Jalal Talabani’s Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, said he thought the government will be named after Kurds celebrate Norwuz, their new year, on March 26.

Meanwhile, any permanent reduction in the number of American troops in Iraq isn’t likely until sometime between 2006 and 2008, a top Army general said yesterday.

For there to be any drawdown, Iraq security forces must continue to improve their ability to fight the insurgency themselves, General Richard Cody, Army vice chief of staff, told reporters.

The military is planning a staggered rotation of soldiers and large units that will be in Iraq between 2006 and early 2008, General Cody said. That planning is expected to include the possibility of a significant reduction in American forces.

He said he could not be more specific in numbers or timeframe, nor did he say how a reduction would be achieved. Sending fewer or smaller units to Iraq is one possibility; shortening the time each unit spends in Iraq is another.

The military has not selected which units will serve in Iraq during that rotation. They would replace the Army’s 4th Infantry and 101st Airborne divisions, which are slated to go to Iraq in the coming rotation.

The insurgency has forced America to keep a semi-permanent force of 138,000 troops, or 17 brigades, in Iraq since the American-led invasion two years ago. They are primarily Army soldiers and Marines, members of units who stay in Iraq for a year before going home.

About 150,000 American troops are in Iraq now because 12,000 extra were sent for security during the January 30 elections. The additional forces are scheduled to leave within two weeks.