“The police commanders are not doing their job the way it should be done,” he said. “We have pointed out the mistakes and failures among the police, but no one has done anything to correct the problems.”  The first bomb on Sunday exploded about 11 a.m. outside the headquarters of Ramadi’s main government building, where the provincial governor and council have offices.  The Iraqi police said a car in a parking lot adjacent to the building was detonated as a meeting took place inside on reconciliation efforts between the Shiite-led government of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki and local Sunni Arabs.  Among those attending the meeting was Zuhair Chalabi, a representative of the National Reconciliation Committee, a group formed by Mr. Maliki to bring together various factions after sectarian warfare erupted in 2006. Mr. Chalabi was not wounded, officials said.  About seven minutes after the first bomb, a second car in the parking lot exploded, wounding security force members and others who had responded to the original explosion, security officials said.  It was the second bomb that caused most of the casualties, officials said.  The building was protected from the explosions by blast walls that had been recently fortified. In September, the provincial council had voted to remove the walls, but the recent spate of violence led it to change course and erect even more barriers.  Many of the victims of the bombings were taken to Ramadi General Hospital.  About one hour after the first two bombings, a man driving a car filled with explosives attempted to speed through a security checkpoint near the hospital, the Iraqi police said.  He was shot by a police officer at the checkpoint but managed to explode the car, killing himself and wounding two others, officials said.  Reporting was contributed by Duraid Adnan, Omar al-Jawoshy, Mohammed Hussein and Sa’ad al-Izzi from Baghdad, and Iraqi employees of The New York Times from Ramadi and Falluja.  A version of this article appears in print on October 12, 2009, on Page A10 of the New York edition with the headline: Bombings Outside Iraq Reconciliation Meeting Kill 23. Order Reprints| Today's Paper|Subscribe
The blasts, which did not harm the officials at the gathering, were the latest in a series of attacks in western Anbar Province.