WASHINGTON - About six in 10 Iraqis say they approve of attacks on U.S.-led forces, and slightly more than that want their government to ask U.S. troops to leave within a year, according to a poll in that country. - from this news item

The complete text is worth reading. More than 90% of the Sunni Arabs support attacks on American troops; about three-quarters (74%) of the Shi'a Arabs support such attacks. Only the Kurds show less than overwhelming support for such attacks -- about 34%.

At the same time, many in Iraq are perfectly willing to keep the Americans around for another year or so, if the American presence is deemed more useful to them than to their local enemies. American training, American weaponry, American soldiers fighting their enemy for them, continued American billions in aid -- all this might lead either the Sunnis, or the Shi'a, or both, each making a calculation that might be right or wrong, to want the Americans to stay a bit longer. According to these polls the Sunni desire for Americans to leave has decreased (as some now see the Americans as protecting them from Shi'a militias) and the desire of Shi'a Arabs for Americans to leave has increased (as the Americans are seen as a brake on the Shi'a militias).

How the Administration can insist on keeping troops in Iraq when 90% of one main Arab faction support the killing of those troops, and 3/4 of the other main Arab group also support such killings, and to speak about the freedom-seeking "Iraqi people," is cause for wonder and alarm.