UNITED STATES: Majority want Iraq withdrawal to begin

Issue 

According to an opinion poll conducted by Hart/McInturff on June 9-12 for the Wall Street Journal and NBC TV News, 52% of US adults think removing Iraq's Saddam Hussein from power was not worth the number of US military casualties and the financial cost of the war. At the time the poll was taken, 2503 US troops had died in Iraq, and at least 18,400 had been wounded in action, since the March 2003 US-led invasion. Fifty-seven percent of respondents were in favour of beginning to withdraw US troops from Iraq, while 35% favoured maintaining the current level of US troop deployment (130,000 in Iraq itself, plus another 130,000 in support roles in neighbouring countries). According to a poll conducted in January by the US-based Program for International Public Attitudes, while 80% of Iraqis think the US plans to maintain large permanent bases in their country, 70% of Iraqis favoured setting a deadline for withdrawal of US forces. Of that 70%, half supported the withdrawal of all US troops within six months, while the other half favoured a gradual pullout over the course of the next two years. Eight-three per cent of Sunnis, 61% of Shiites and 57% of Kurds — 67% overall — said that "day-to-day security for ordinary Iraqis" would increase if the US-led foreign troops left Iraq. The poll also found that 47% of Iraqi respondents — 88% of Sunni Arabs, 41% of Shiite Arabs and 16% of Iraqi Kurds — supported attacks on the US-led occupation forces.

From Green Left Weekly, June 28, 2006.
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