President Hamid Karzai's peace council, called a jirga, came under fire from inside and out on its first day Wednesday. Even as the Afghan president spoke, inviting the Taliban to join in peace efforts, insurgents sent a pair of potential suicide bombers, disguised in women's clothing, in a failed attempt to disrupt it. Inside the sprawling jirga tent, a former president who led anti-Taliban warlords was appointed chairman, prompting some prominent delegates to pronounce the deliberations doomed. 'This is a mistake, all the warlords were there in the front row,' said Mir Joyenda, an independent member of Parliament from Kabul. 'There is no change that will come to Afghanistan,' he said, reflecting widespread disgust with the continued prominent role of former warlords in the government. 'It's dangerous to raise people's expectations with this fake and artificial exercise. It's a workshop, not a jirga,' said a leading member of Parliament, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of alienating Karzai officials. Other than members of Parliament, many of the 1,600 delegates were handpicked in a process dominated by the president's staff. Karzai opened the jirga with an address that appealed directly to Taliban insurgents, blaming foreign forces in part for excesses that had driven people to join them. 'I am telling you, dear brother Talib-jan, this is your country, come and have a peaceful life in the country,' he said. 'Jan' is an affectionate suffix that Afghans often attach to the names of their friends. The Taliban's reply came before the president even finished speaking, as a rocket exploded in the compound, within a few hundred yards of the jirga tent. 'Some are trying to fire rockets,' he said, shrugging off the attack. 'Everyone is used to it; even my 3-year-old son is used to it.' A Taliban spokesman, Zabiullah Mujahid, reached by telephone while the attack was under way, said, 'Our main purpose is to disrupt the peace jirga.' Minutes after Karzai concluded his speech, a second, larger explosion rocked the jirga tent, and the session was suspended for 90 minutes as the police battled the insurgents, killing two suicide bombers and arresting a confederate of theirs. Karzai at first nominated the president of Afghanistan's senate, Sibghatullah Mujadedi, to chair the advisory jirga, but claiming he was too old, he nominated in his place Burhanuddin Rabbani, the leader of a mujahedeen party, Jamiat-i-Islami, who served as president in the 1990s when the Taliban were battling warlords for control of the country. He was chosen by acclamation rather than by a vote. 'Some agree with his appointment; some will not,' said Hazrat-Shah Nuristani, a senator from Nuristan Province. 'It would have been great if they chose the chairman based on a transparent election. 'It won't help heal the people's wounds to install this old pawn.' Others, however, expressed optimism and discounted any problems with Rabbani's appointment. 'Those who were invited and are participating are the real representatives of the people,' said Mohammed Ibrahim, a delegate from Kandahar, where Karzai's brother, Ahmed Wali Karzai, is the chairman of the provincial council and a delegate to the jirga. Although several of Karzai's supporters said they doubted that Rabbani was the right man to persuade the Taliban to enter peace negotiations, they said others, who had more credibility with the Taliban, would negotiate with them, said Hajji Shawkat Stanakzai, a member of the tribal council in Logar Province. Regardless of whether delegates were supporters of Karzai or his critics, there was an overwhelming sense that the country's security was deteriorating and that Afghans had lost faith in pledges of peace. 'It is really difficult to satisfy the people' that the jirga will make a difference, said Mina Azizi, a representative from Ghazni, where security has deteriorated so much that she moved to Kabul. 'All of the people are living through the troubles in our country, and this kind of meeting has happened over and over,' she said. The Taliban carried out their attack from a safe house within the sprawling security perimeter that Afghan forces had set up a week ago, according to a police commander near the scene of the fighting, who had just interrogated a Taliban suspect captured in a firefight for control of the house. The commander, who refused to give his name, said the suspect, whom he named as Mohammed Nabih from Wardak Province, told them that the Taliban had set up in the house 10 days earlier. Zemarai Bashary, the spokesman for the Interior Ministry, said the two suicide bombers, wearing explosive vests and carrying heavy weapons, managed to get close to the scene disguised as women, wearing blue burqas. He disputed earlier reports that there were three suicide bombers. A spokesman for NATO's International Security Assistance Force said the Taliban attack was handled completely by Afghan authorities. 'It was a quick response by our security forces,' said Waheed Omar, a presidential spokesman who maintained that all of the actual attackers were killed and that none got close enough to pose a serious threat to the jirga. Officials recaptured the house on Wednesday afternoon, and found the bodies of two dead insurgents inside. Two Afghan policemen were wounded in the operation, the police said. The authorities said both suspects were killed before they could detonate their vests. However, a photographer for The New York Times who saw one of the victims said there was no sign of a suicide vest. 