US President George W. Bush said in an interview published yesterday in The New York Times that US troops would pull out of Iraq if the new leaders to be elected Sunday requested it.
The statement came as insurgents stepped up attacks against polling centers across Iraq, killing at least a dozen people, including a US Marine, in the rebel campaign to frighten Iraqis away from participating in this weekend's election.
Also, a car bomb exploded near a Baghdad police station yesterday, killing four people and injuring two others, police said.
Officers guarding the police station in the capital's southern Dora neighborhood opened fire on the vehicle as it sped toward them and exploded, a police official said.
Bush said that, given the ongoing violence, he expected Iraqis to ask US troops to remain as helpers, not occupiers.
"I've heard the voices of the people that presumably will be in a position of responsibility after these elections, though you never know," Bush said. "But it seems like most of the leadership there understands that there will be a need for coalition troops at least until Iraqis are able to fight."
Asked by the daily in its 40-minute interview, conducted Thursday, if the US troops should be withdrawn if the new Iraqi administeration requested it, Bush said: "Yes, absolutely. And this is a sovereign government -- they're on their feet."
Meanwhile, as part of an intensifying campaign of intimidation, an al-Qaida affiliate led by Jordanian terror mastermind Abu Musab al-Zarqawi posted a videotape on the Internet on Thursday showing the murder of a candidate from the party of interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi.
The tape included a warning to Allawi personally: "You traitor, wait for the angel of death."
To protect voters tomorrow, hundreds of US soldiers began moving out of their massive garrison on the western edge of Baghdad to take up positions at smaller bases throughout the city to respond more quickly to any election day attacks.
Sunni Muslim insurgents have threatened to disrupt the balloting, when Iraqis choose a 275-member National Assembly and governing councils in the country's 18 provinces. Voters in the Kurdish self-governing area of the north will select a new regional parliament.
In the former rebel stronghold of Fallujah, where opposition to the balloting is strong, US Marines drove through the city Thursday, urging people through loudspeakers to turn out tomorrow. Spokesman 1st Lieutenant Lyle Gilbert said the Marines were "encouraging people to capitalize on this opportunity to exercise their voice by voting in the upcoming free elections."
Iraqi newspapers also published for the first time the names of some 7,000 National Assembly candidates, many of whose identities had been kept secret to protect them from assassination.
The interim government will deploy an additional 2,500 troops to help guard the elections, the Defense Ministry said. A total of 300,000 Iraqi and multinational troops will provide security, with Iraq's US-trained forces taking the lead role.
About 9,000 Iraqi troops also are being dispatched to guard oil pipelines, which insurgents repeatedly have targeted.
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