Troops Widely Reject Bush’s Iraq Strategy as Civilian War Support Hits New Low

Abid Aslam, OneWorld USTue Feb 28, 9:23 PM ET

WASHINGTON, D.C., Feb 28 (OneWorld) - Three out of four U.S. soldiers in Iraq reject their commander in chief’s strategy to keep them there, according to a unique poll that on Tuesday became the latest survey to evoke an increasingly isolated White House.

President George W. Bush has said U.S. troops will continue to be deployed in Iraq for a number of years because the United States needs to ”stay the course” to vanquish terrorists and other foes of democracy and stability.

However, 29 percent of the troops serving in Iraq favor immediate withdrawal, about half say the U.S. should pull out within six months, and 72 percent say they should leave the country within a year, said a poll released Tuesday by Zogby International and the Center for Peace and Global Studies at Le Moyne College in Syracuse, NY.

By contrast, 23 percent said they should remain in Iraq ”as long as they are needed,” the survey said.

The survey nevertheless revealed a gap between the troops and anti-war civilians back home.

Asked why they think some American civilians favor a quick pull out from Iraq, 37 percent said those Americans are unpatriotic. The sentiment ran highest among reservists, with 55 percent castigating their compatriots as unpatriotic, followed by Marines at 45 percent and 33 percent among Army regulars.

Another 20 percent of the troops thought people back home do not believe a continued occupation will work, and 16 percent said they believe those favoring a quick withdrawal do so because they oppose using the military in a pre-emptive war.

Another 15 percent said they thought opponents of the war back home do not understand why U.S. troops are needed in Iraq.

Despite those differences, the poll’s findings appear to strip the Bush administration of one of the biggest arrows in its Iraq public relations quiver: In the past, the White House has assailed critics of the U.S.-led occupation of Iraq as being out of touch with troops who want to stay in Iraq until they accomplish their long-term mission.

Indeed, a majority of U.S. soldiers in Iraq looked askance at official U.S. reasons for prosecuting the war against Iraq.

”Ninety-three percent said that removing weapons of mass destruction is not a reason for U.S. troops being there,” said pollster John Zogby. ”Instead, that initial rationale went by the wayside and, in the minds of 68 percent of the troops, the real mission became to remove Saddam Hussein.”

Only 24 percent said that ”establishing a democracy that can be a model for the Arab World” was the main or a major reason for the war. Smaller percentages said they see their mission there as securing oil supplies (11 percent) or to provide long-term bases for U.S. troops in the region (six percent).

Zogby International selected 944 U.S. troops at random and interviewed them in person at bases all over Iraq between mid-January and mid-February. It said its survey had a margin of error of 3.3 percentage points.

The firm cited security concerns and withheld the names of places and personnel involved in the survey. It said that three-fourths of the troops had served at least two and in many cases three or more tours of duty in Iraq. Three out of four respondents were men and 63 percent were younger than 30 years of age.

A majority said they were satisfied with Washington’s war provisions, with only 30 percent saying they thought the Pentagon had failed to provide adequate body armor, munitions, and other forms of troop protection.

Zogby said he believed his firm’s survey marked the first attempt to take the pulse of soldiers in a war zone in a scientific manner.

A less scientific but more extensive 2003 canvass of thousands of troops by military daily Stars and Stripes found low morale among U.S. troops serving in Iraq. Last month, an annual survey by the Military Times group of newspapers found that support for Bush’s Iraq policy among active-duty personnel in general fell by nine percentage points last year to 54 percent.

The Military Times survey found morale generally ran high despite what it termed ”diminished optimism that U.S. goals in Iraq can be accomplished.”

Tuesday’s Zogby poll, which covered only soldiers deployed in Iraq, found 42 percent to be unsure about what those goals are.

All the same, a slim majority—53 percent—said the U.S. should double both the number of troops and bombing missions in order to control the insurgency.

More than 80 percent of troops said they did not hold a negative view of Iraqis despite continuing insurgent attacks.

Pressure to withdraw from Iraq has built amid mounting American casualties, the ongoing insurgency, and political and communal bloodletting that is fierce and spasmodic.

As of Tuesday, at least 2,298 U.S. military personnel had died in Iraq since the start of the war in March 2003, according to the Pentagon.

U.S. public approval of Bush’s handling of the Iraq war has hit an all-time low, CBS News said in a poll issued Monday. It found only 30 percent of Americans saying they approve of the job the president is doing on Iraq.

By two to one, the poll found Americans think U.S. efforts to bring stability to Iraq are going badly. CBS termed this ”the worst assessment yet of progress in Iraq.”

Most Americans also think the war in Iraq has heightened the risk of terrorist attacks at home and abroad—as do most people in 33 of 35 countries covered in a poll issued Tuesday by the polling firm GlobeScan and the Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA) at the University of Maryland.

The poll—which involved 41,856 people and was conducted from last October until last month—found that more people than not in 20 of the 35 countries thought U.S.-led occupation forces should withdraw from Iraq in the next few months.

The countries most eager for U.S. coalition withdrawal were Argentina (80 percent), Egypt (76 percent), China and Brazil (67 percent each), Saudi Arabia (64 percent), and Senegal (64 percent).

The countries most inclined to favor U.S. troops remaining until Iraq is stable included the United States (58 percent), Afghanistan (58 percent), Australia (57 percent), Great Britain (56 percent), and Germany (55 percent).

Among Iraqis, pollsters found equal proportions—49 percent—favoring withdrawal soon and supporting continued occupation until the country is stable. Were the new Iraqi government to ask the forces to stay, support for doing so would rise slightly to 53 percent.

While 74 percent of Iraqis surveyed said removing Saddam Hussein was the right thing to do, 75 percent say they also believe that it has increased the risk of terrorist attacks around the world.

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