(Adds deaths of five U.S. servicemen, paragraph 18) By Ross Colvin BAGHDAD, Dec 12 (Reuters) - A suicide bomber targeting poor labourers killed 70 people in Baghdad on Tuesday, a day when U.S. President George W. Bush was talking to his military chiefs in Iraq to help him draft a new U.S. strategy. A White House official said Bush, who faces popular pressure for a quick withdrawal of U.S. troops, was likely to delay unveiling a new strategy until early in January, instead of late this year as originally planned. The top U.S. operational commander in Iraq, Lieutenant General Peter Chiarelli, said before briefing Bush in a video teleconference that U.S. forces should stay in Iraq until Iraqi forces were ready to assume security control. "We can't give in to terrorists. How can we allow that to occur? This is the most important conflict we have been involved in in the last 50 years," Chiarelli told reporters in Baghdad. Chiarelli, the outgoing deputy U.S. commander in Iraq, emphasised that U.S. military might alone would not end the violence, saying more progress needed to be made in creating jobs and reconciling Iraq's warring communities. "We seem to be totally focused on the military here. It is a huge contributor but there are other things that are important." Iraqi leaders are in talks to find common ground among rival groups in a bid to halt worsening sectarian violence and strengthen Shi'ite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's coalition government, officials close to the discussions said on Tuesday. The officials said the talks were aimed at creating a political coalition that could bridge the ethnic and sectarian divide. The government is now made up of competing ethnic and sectarian blocs whose infighting has paralysed decision-making. "There is no front or a bloc yet -- it is all still just talks," said Salim al-Jibouri of the biggest Sunni bloc, the Islamic Party. "But we want to get away from the idea of electing someone because they are a Sunni, a Shi'ite or a Kurd." Interior Ministry sources said 236 people were wounded in the Baghdad blast after the suicide bomber lured a crowd of day labourers to his vehicle with the promise of work. They said 70 people were killed. The 7 a.m. bombing took place in Tayaran Square, a popular gathering point for construction workers who frequent the cafes and street vendors while waiting for the chance of some work. Many of the workers who gather in the area are poor Shi'ites. "A driver with a pickup truck stopped and asked for labourers. When they gathered around the car it exploded," said a witness, who was helping a stumbling survivor with a blood- stained bandage covering his head. "They were poor labourers looking for work," he said. "HORRIBLE MASSACRE" Calling the attack a "horrible massacre", Maliki blamed it on Saddam Hussein sympathisers and Sunni Islamist al Qaeda. "These terrorist groups are trying to spread chaos by killing and fuelling sectarian strife," he said in a statement. Iraq is gripped by violence between majority Shi'ites and Sunni Arabs dominant under Saddam but now the backbone of the insurgency. Tens of thousands have been killed in what many Iraqis fear is a slide towards all-out civil war. A new poll has shown that most Americans support a quick withdrawal of U.S. troops, putting Bush under strong pressure to shift course in Iraq, where more than 2,930 U.S. troops have died since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion. Three U.S. airmen were killed in action in western Iraq on Monday and two other soldiers died in separate incidents, the military said on Tuesday. Bush's briefing by his generals was part of a high-profile focus this week on how to change strategy in Iraq. He was due to hold talks with Iraq's Sunni vice president, Tareq al-Hashemi, later in the day. He consulted Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and other top diplomatic officials on Monday and is due to visit the Pentagon on Wednesday. A week after the bipartisan Iraq Study Group gave Bush 79 recommendations for changing direction in the unpopular Iraq war, Bush did not appear to be warming to some of its major conclusions as he prepared his own plan. The bipartisan report called for direct talks with Iran and Syria and for U.S. combat troops to be out of Iraq by early 2008, but Bush has declined to embrace either recommendation. (Additional reporting by Mariam Karouny and Ibon Villelabeitia in Baghdad)
