Most Iraqis Doubt US Will Ever Leave

Most Iraqis Doubt US Will Ever Leave:

"WASHINGTON - Large majorities of Iraqis believe that the United States has no intention of ever withdrawing all its military forces from their country and that Washington's reconstruction efforts have been incompetent at best, according to a new survey released here Tuesday.

At the same time, however, only 35 percent of Iraqis -- most of them Sunni Arabs -- believe coalition forces should withdraw within six months, although if they did so, majorities said it would have a beneficial impact, as many prominent Democrats and other war critics here have argued.

Scepticism about U.S. plans in Iraq is particularly pronounced among the country's Sunni population, who were far more negative about virtually every aspect of post-invasion Iraq than their counterparts in the Shi'a and Kurdish communities, which together are believed to account for 75-80 percent of the country's population.

Indeed, despite the strong Sunni Arab participation in December's parliamentary elections, a whopping 88 percent of the community approves of 'attacks on U.S.-led forces' in Iraq, with 77 percent voicing 'strong approval' -- a level of hostility that presents a serious challenge for U.S. officials now negotiating with Sunni insurgent leaders, as reported in the Feb. 6 issue of Newsweek magazine.

By comparison, 41 percent of Shiites said they approved such attacks, while 16 percent of Kurds, by far the most pro-U.S. of the three groups, agreed.

The survey, the latest in a series that has probed Iraqi opinion since the March 2003 U.S.-led invasion, was designed by the Programme on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA) at the University of Maryland for WorldPublicOpinion.org and conducted through face-to-face interviews of 1,150 randomly selected Iraqi adults in all 18 Iraqi Iraqi provinces in early January, three weeks after the December elections.

While Sunni Arabs were over-represented in the sample, the data was weighted according to each group's actual estimated share of the total Iraqi population: Shia Arab, 55 percent; Sunni Arab, 22 percent; Kurd, 18 percent; and other groups, five percent. The survey results, which come amid intensified jockeying in Baghdad over the constitution of a new government, are a mixed bag for the administration of Pres. George W. Bush.

His approval ratings in the U.S. have fallen dangerously over the past year, in substantial part due to the perception that he lacks a viable plan for "success" in Iraq, even as he rejects pressure by Democrats and prominent members of the foreign policy establishment to announce a timetable for the withdrawal of the 140,000 U.S. troops there.

The survey found considerable scepticism about Bush's frequent promises not to maintain U.S. military forces in Iraq "a day longer" than is necessary for ensuring its stability.