LONDON, Oct 24: A clear majority of Britons want the country’s troops to pull out of Iraq by the end of the year, regardless of whether they have finished their mission, according to two polls published on Tuesday.
Some 61 per cent of the 1,019 people surveyed by polling firm ICM for The Guardian said British soldiers should leave Iraq before 2007 — 45 per cent want them to withdraw immediately, and a further 16 per cent say by the end of the year — even if the United States requests that they stay on.
By contrast, just 30 per cent backed keeping the troops there as long as is considered necessary.
That compares to 51 per cent backing troop withdrawal in a similar poll published in The Guardian in September 2005, when 41 per cent supported keeping troops in the country until the job was completed.
Meanwhile, in a poll of 977 people by Communicate Research for The Independent daily, 62 per cent of respondents said they thought British troops should be withdrawn from Iraq as soon as possible, even if the country is not completely stable.
Only 28 per cent said soldiers should stay there for as long as it takes.
About 72 per cent of respondents said that if British and American troops withdrew from Iraq, it will probably lead to civil war there.
Some 72 per cent of respondents also said that the war in Iraq was “unwinnable”, with just 19 per cent disagreeing.
The Guardian said that support for withdrawing British troops from Iraq soon was particularly strong among women, with 51 per cent saying soldiers should leave immediately, and only 24 per cent responding that troops should stay on.
The polls come a day after Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Barham Saleh said that nearly half of the country’s 18 provinces will be under Iraqi control by the end of the year, despite growing concerns about increased violence there.—AFP
