BAGHDAD, Iraq - Three car bomb attacks near a bus station and hospital in Baghdad today killed at least 43 people and wounded 89, in the deadliest attacks in the capital in weeks. Survivors searched charred buses and cars for signs of relatives.

The violence came as Iraq's leaders resumed negotiations on a draft of a new constitution, a charter they hope will bring stability and help end the insurgency. The document was to be finished Monday, but the deadline was extended one week.

A suicide car bomber targeting policemen detonated his vehicle outside the Nahda bus station in central Baghdad, one of the city's major transit points, the U.S. military said.

A second car exploded in the open-air station's parking lot near buses that carry passengers to Amarah and Basra, Shiite-dominated cities in southern Iraq, police Capt. Nabil Abdul-Qader said.

A second suicide bomber exploded his vehicle near the Kindi Hospital about 30 minutes later as many of the wounded were arriving for treatment, police said. It was unclear if the hospital was targeted in the blast.

Abdul-Qader said 43 people died and 85 were wounded in the attacks.

It was the deadliest series of single-day suicide bombings in Baghdad in weeks, although suicide attacks with far lower death tolls occur here regularly.

Twenty-five people died in a suicide blast July 10 at an army recruiting center in Baghdad. On July 13 a car bomb in Baghdad killed 27 people, 18 of them teenagers or children and one American soldier.

Also, two U.S. soldiers were killed, the military said today. One was killed Tuesday when a roadside bomb exploded near his patrol in southwest Baghdad and another was killed in an insurgent attack in northern Iraq.

The latest attacks occurred shortly before Iraqi leaders started a meeting today to try to finish the new constitution. A Shiite negotiator, Khalid al-Attiyah, said talks were going so well that the document might be ready for parliament today.

The blasts left several mutilated bodies strewn across the station parking lot and a large plume of black smoke visible throughout the capital as many traveled to work in the morning. Over a dozen cars and at least two buses were destroyed, leaving only rows of seat frames inside a bare metal hull.

Several weeping men hugged beside a young boy inside the open-air terminal. One man searched through the charred buses for signs of his brother and cousin who were both at the station in the morning.

Elsewhere, six new Iraqi soldier recruits were killed execution-style after gunmen stopped their minibus near Hawija, 30 miles southwest of Kirkuk, Iraqi Army Brig. Gen. Anwar Mohammed Amin said. The killed Iraqis were traveling to a training camp in Kirkuk.

One of the stumbling blocks in the constitution debate was Kurdish demands for self-determination, which would give them the right to secede.

On Tuesday, Kurdish leaders said they had no plans to break away from Iraq even through they wanted the right enshrined in the constitution.