Few Iraqis trust U.S. forces four years into war

By Claudia Parsons
Reuters

Only 18 percent of Iraqis have confidence in U.S.-led forces, a new poll showed on Monday, four years after the invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein.

With Iraq bogged down in sectarian violence that threatens to tip the country into civil war, President Bush announced a strategy shift this year and is sending some 26,000 reinforcements for a security crackdown focused on Baghdad.

Bombers struck in the city of Kirkuk, to the north, on Monday, with five bombs killing 18 people and wounding dozens, police and medical source said. The city is a volatile mix of Shi'ites, Sunni Arabs, ethnic Kurds and Turkmen and has seen growing sectarian violence.

A bomb in a bag near a Shi'ite mosque in central Baghdad killed four people and wounded 25 on Monday, police said.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates said on Sunday it was too early to evaluate whether the latest U.S. strategy was working but "so far, so good."

U.S. generals say it will probably be summer before the impact of the extra troops can be fully assessed, and have warned the troop increase could have a "squirting effect" where al Qaeda and insurgents would operate elsewhere, Gates said.

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