Hours after the Cabinet vote, seven people died and seven were wounded in a suicide car bombing at a police checkpoint in Diyala, a turbulent province northeast of Baghdad, according to police Col. Ahmed Khalifa, chief of Jalula police station.

The U.S. military said the attack in Jalula occurred at a police station and that four police and six civilians died. There was no immediate explanation for the discrepancy in the reports.

Earlier Sunday, a roadside bomb killed three people and wounded seven in northern Baghdad, Iraqi authorities said.

Al-Dabbagh said all but one of 28 Cabinet ministers present in Sunday's meeting, in addition to al-Maliki, voted for the pact. The sole vote of dissent came from Minister of Women's Affairs Nawal al-Samaraie, a member of the Iraqi Islamic Party, the country's largest Sunni Arab party.

She said she voted against the pact because she preferred that it be put to a nationwide referendum. She also wanted the U.S. military to free Sunni security detainees not charged with specific crimes, rather than hand them to Iraqi authorities as provided by the agreement.

The Cabinet vote followed Washington's decision last week to grant a request by al-Maliki for final amendments.

Khalid al-Attiyah, parliament's deputy speaker, said the changes removed ambiguous language that could have allowed U.S. forces to ignore a timeline for their withdrawal from Iraqi cities by June 30, 2009, and from the country by Jan. 1, 2012. The changes also tightened Iraq's control over security raids and the arrest of Iraqis.

The agreement is believed to have met Iraqi concerns over its sovereignty and its security needs as it continues to grapple with a diminished but persistent insurgency. It gives Iraq the right to try U.S. soldiers and defense contractors in the case of serious crimes committed off-duty and off-base.

Al-Attiyah said he expected parliament to vote on the agreement by Nov. 24. If parliament approves the deal, President Jalal Talabani and his two deputies must ratify it.

Iraq's parliament is due to go into recess at the end of the month or in early December because of the Muslim Eid al-Adha holiday, when many lawmakers travel to Saudi Arabia on the annual pilgrimage.

Parliamentary speaker Mahmoud al-Mashhadani canceled all leave for lawmakers and suspended foreign and out-of-town visits to ensure a quorum for the security pact vote, al-Attiyah said.

"I'm optimistic that this agreement will be passed through the Council of Representatives (parliament)," spokesman al-Dabbagh told Associated Press Television News. But he added: "You cannot guarantee 100 percent approval of anything."