US must stay in Iraq after polls: Bush

Security is tight and forces kept on red alert at a polling station in the Sheikh Maaruf area in the notorious Haifa Street district in Baghdad yesterday. Iraqis nervously cast ballots in their country's first election in more than 50 years yesterday as insurgents rocked the vote with string of suicide bombings and mortar attacks. PHOTO: AFP

"As democracy takes hold in Iraq, America's mission there will continue," Bush said in his weekly radio address on Saturday. "Our military forces, diplomats and civilian personnel will help the newly elected government of Iraq establish security and train Iraqi military police and other forces."

Hours after he spoke, a rocket hit the US Embassy compound in Baghdad's heavily secured Green Zone, killing two Americans and wounding four.

White House spokeswoman Claire Buchan said Bush was told about the attack right after it happened and she reiterated his message that the US mission in Iraq would continue.

While calling Sunday's election a "turning point" in Iraq's history and a milestone in the war on terror, Bush warned it would not bring a halt to violence there.

"Terrorist violence will not end with the election," he said.

The president is under growing pressure at home to show signs of progress in Iraq, with the US death toll having surpassed 1,400 and members of Congress increasingly uneasy about the costs in blood and money.

Massachusetts Democratic Sen. Edward Kennedy, a critic of Bush's Iraq policy, said on Thursday that the United States should start to withdraw militarily and politically from Iraq and aim to pull out all troops as early as possible next year.

At least 12,000 US troops should leave at once to send a signal about US intentions to "ease the pervasive sense of occupation," Kennedy said.

Meanwhile, Britain's ambassador in Baghdad, Edward Chaplin, warned Sunday against a premature withdrawal of US, British and other foreign troops from Iraq.

The coalition-backed interim prime minister Iyad "Allawi is very against setting any artificial deadline or timetable" for pulling out troops, Chaplin told BBC television.

"We want as soon as possible security of the country entirely in the hands of the Iraqi security forces. We also recognize that can't be done too quickly," Chaplin added.