You love polls, Pro...Here is a different one...
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Few Iraqis trust U.S. forces four years on By Claudia Parsons
Mon Mar 19, 9:04 AM ET
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Four in five Iraqis have little or no confidence in U.S.-led forces and most think their presence is making security worse, but despite that only about a third want them to leave now, a poll showed on Monday.
Four years after the U.S.-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein, insurgents kept up the pressure with bomb attacks in Kirkuk and Baghdad on Monday.
With Iraq bogged down in sectarian violence that threatens to tip the country into civil war, President Bush announced a strategy shift this year and is sending some 26,000 reinforcements for a security crackdown focused on Baghdad.
Bombers struck in the city of Kirkuk, to the north, on Monday, with two car bombs and four roadside bombs killing at least 12 people and wounding 39, police Brigadier Sarhat Qader said. Earlier police sources had put the toll at 18.
The city is a volatile mix of Shi'ites, Sunni Arabs, ethnic Kurds and Turkmen, and has seen growing sectarian violence.
A bomb in a bag near a Shi'ite mosque in central Baghdad killed four people and wounded 25 on Monday, police said.
With American public opinion turning increasingly against the Iraq war, a poll published by the BBC on Monday showed only 18 percent of Iraqis have confidence in U.S.-led forces.
The poll of more than 2,000 people, commissioned by the BBC, ABC News, ARD and USA Today, indicated Iraqis have become less optimistic about the future compared to a similar survey in 2005 when respondents were generally hopeful, the BBC said.
Asked whether their lives were overall better or worse than before the invasion, 43 percent said better, 36 percent worse and the rest about the same. Expectations for how things will be in a year were much lower than in 2005, with only 35 percent expecting improvement compared to 64 percent in a 2005 survey.
NO CONFIDENCE IN BAGHDAD
The survey showed sharp geographical variations, with confidence in U.S.-led forces highest in the north, at 46 percent, and non-existent in Baghdad, where 100 percent said they had not very much or no confidence in U.S.-led forces.
Overall, 18 percent of Iraqis expressed confidence in U.S. forces and 69 percent said their presence made security worse.
U.S. and Iraqi forces launched a major crackdown in Baghdad in mid-February that commanders say has already halved civilian deaths, largely through a reduction in the number of victims of death squad killings blamed on militias.
In Baghdad, the poll showed 100 percent said U.S. and other foreign forces had done a bad job in Iraq, opposed the presence of U.S.-led forces and said the presence of U.S. forces was making security in the country worse.
Despite that, only 35 percent of all Iraqis and 36 percent in Baghdad said U.S. forces should leave now.
The most popular view on how long they should stay was "until security is restored," with 45 percent of Baghdad residents and 38 percent of all Iraqis picking that option.
Anti-war sentiment propelled Democrats into the majority in the U.S. Congress last November and the fourth anniversary of the Iraq war this week was marked by anti-war protests around the United States over the weekend.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates said on Sunday it was too early to evaluate whether the latest U.S. strategy was working but "so far, so good."
U.S. generals say it will probably be summer before the impact of the extra troops can be fully assessed, and have warned the troop increase could have a "squirting effect" where al Qaeda and insurgents would operate elsewhere, Gates said. |
