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Iraqis want troops out: poll
20/05/2004 10:13 - (SA)
London - A new poll of Iraqi people has shown that more than half of them now want the US-led coalition troops to leave their country, while a vast majority regard the military presence as an occupying force, a British newspaper reported on Thursday.
The poll was conducted by the year-old Iraq Centre for Research and Strategic Studies, a group considered reliable enough for coalition officials to have submitted questions for inclusion in the poll, the Financial Times said.
According to the findings of the survey of 1 600 Shia and Sunni Arabs and Kurds, not formally released until next week, more than half the population want coalition troops out of Iraq, the poll's organisers told the newspaper.
This compares with a figure of only around one in five in a poll taken last October, the paper said, adding that the latest survey was taken before the scandal emerged of the abuse of Iraqi prisoners by US troops.
Also, 88% of respondents saw coalition troops in Iraq as occupiers, while around two-thirds supported radical Shiite cleric Moqtada Sadr, a noted foe of US-led forces.
"Iraqis always contrast American actions with American promises and there's now a wide gap in credibility," Saadoun Duleimi, the head of the centre, told the paper.
- AFP
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