Workers Rally for Troops

NEW YORK —  About 25,000 construction workers showing support for U.S. troops in Iraq gathered Thursday near the site of the fallen World Trade Center, where many of the same working men and women dug through the rubble after the attacks on Sept. 11.

Clad in hard hats, blue jeans and workmen’s boots, the ironworkers, carpenters, pipe fitters and others filled three lanes of a highway that runs along the site known as ground zero. They waved flags and chanted “USA, USA, USA.”

New York Gov. George E. Pataki told the crowd: “The war started right here on September 11 of 2001.”

Pataki suggested that the statue of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein toppled Wednesday in Baghdad be melted down and put in a girder in one of the new buildings planned for the ground zero site. His suggestion drew a huge round of applause.

Unofficially, police and organizers estimated the crowd at 25,000 people.

“I think this is the right thing to do,” said carpenter Denfield Christopher of Brooklyn.

“I think he was a maniac, Saddam, and this needed to be done,” Christopher said.

“We are here today to do one thing, to send a message, the message of what America really thinks. It stands behind our president, George W. Bush,” said Patrick Lynch, president of the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Assn. that represents city police officers, in a speech to the crowd.

Polls show most Americans favor the war in Iraq, but a survey released Thursday showed weaker support in New York City.