Most in Baghdad want U.S. to stay

From combined dispatches

BAGHDAD — More than two-thirds of Baghdad residents would like to see U.S. troops stay in Iraq for an extended period, according to a poll conducted by the Gallup Organization in the violence-racked Iraqi capital.

The city has been struck by suicide bombers three times in the past five days, including yesterday in an attack outside the Turkish Embassy. Witnesses said the driver and a bystander were killed, and hospitals said at least 13 were wounded.

Much of the blast was absorbed by concrete barriers outside the embassy, U.S. officials said.

Seventy-one percent of Baghdad residents believe U.S. troops should not leave within the next few months, according to the Gallup Poll released yesterday in Washington. Twenty-six percent feel the troops should leave that soon.

Almost six in 10 — 58 percent — say U.S. troops in Baghdad have behaved fairly well or very well, with one in 10 saying very well. Twenty percent say the troops have behaved fairly badly and 9 percent say very badly.

The biggest surprise may have been public reaction to the questioners, who visited Iraqis in their homes. Richard Burkholder, director of international polling for Gallup, said the response rate was close to 97 percent, with some people following questioners around the streets begging for a chance to give their opinions.

A sizable minority feel there are circumstances in which attacks against U.S. troops could be justified. Almost one in five — 19 percent — say attacks could be justified, and an additional 17 percent say they could be in some situations.

U.S. forces were lucky to have escaped injury in yesterday’s suicide attack, having been deployed outside the Turkish Embassy as recently as last weekend, apparently because of a threat.

“About three days ago, we received indications that there might be increased danger on the Turkish Embassy,” said Col. Peter Mansoor of the 1st Armored Division. “We revved up security measures based on those indications.”

Turkish Ambassador Osman Paksut, whose government has offered peacekeeping troops to reinforce the U.S. military presence, denounced the attack. “This is the act of those who want to turn Iraq into a terror paradise,” he said.

Just who is behind the bombings remains a mystery, although Iraqis converging on the scene yesterday began chanting pro-Saddam Hussein slogans.

It was the third car bombing since Thursday, when a driver detonated his vehicle in a police station courtyard, killing himself and nine others. On Sunday, a suicide bomber killed himself and six others near the Baghdad Hotel, home to U.S. and Iraqi officials.

The string of attacks began in August with bombings at the Jordanian Embassy and the U.N. headquarters, killing more than 140 people across Iraq. All the targets have been institutions perceived as cooperating with the United States.

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