UPDATED: Iraqis and Americans agree: get out within a year, even if it means more violence

Posted by Joshua Holland at 5:59 AM on February 27, 2007.

For the first time in a Washington Post-ABC News poll, a majority of Americans want a timetable for pulling our troops out of Iraq...

The Post-ABC poll found that 53 percent of Americans favored setting a deadline for troop withdrawals. Among those who favored a deadline, 24 percent said they would like to see U.S. forces out within six months and 21 percent called for the withdrawals to be completed within a year. The rest of those who supported a timetable said they do not support withdrawing all troops until at least a year from now. [...]

Some Democrats have called for cutting off money for the war. The Post-ABC News poll found that 46 percent of Americans supported restricting funding while a bare majority, 51 percent, opposed doing so.

There was clear support, however, for the kinds of conditions proposed by Rep. John P. Murtha (D-Pa.), who wants to establish requirements for the training and resting of military units that would have the effect of limiting the number of troops available to send to Iraq.

Murtha's plan has drawn fire in the House, including from some of his Democratic colleagues, after it was announced on a liberal Web site. The Post-ABC News poll, which did not associate the plan with Murtha, found that 58 percent of Americans said they support such new rules. Even some Americans, 21 percent, who supported the president's troop increase said they would favor rules for training and resting troops. [...]

I should note here, as others have, that the WaPo has been editorializing against Murtha's plan. They first ran this article without mentioning that a majority of Americans favor the approach, and only added the preceding graph after bloggers called them on it.

Growing numbers of Americans also favored withdrawing U.S. forces even if civil order in Iraq has not been restored. The poll found that 42 percent favored keeping troops there until order is reestablished, while 56 percent said the troops should be redeployed to avoid further U.S. casualties, even if the sectarian violence is continuing.

If that sounds harsh, let me remind you that it's the view shared by a majority of Iraqis as well.

From a PIPA poll in September:

... seven in ten Iraqis want U.S.-led forces to commit to withdraw within a year. An overwhelming majority believes that the U.S. military presence in Iraq is provoking more conflict than it is preventing and there is growing confidence in the Iraqi army. If the United States made a commitment to withdraw, a majority believes that this would strengthen the Iraqi government.

A large majority of Iraqis--71%--say they would like the Iraqi government to ask for U.S.-led forces to be withdrawn from Iraq within a year or less. Given four options, 37 percent take the position that they would like U.S.-led forces withdrawn "within six months," while another 34 percent opt for "gradually withdraw[ing] U.S.-led forces according to a one-year timeline." Twenty percent favor a two-year timeline and just 9 percent favor "only reduc[ing] U.S.-led forces as the security situation improves in Iraq."

That was confirmed by the State Department's own polling at the time:

In Baghdad, for example, nearly three-quarters of residents polled said they would feel safer if U.S. and other foreign forces left Iraq, with 65 percent of those asked favoring an immediate pullout ...

The view of Shiite residents of Baghdad were among the most interesting findings in the PIPA poll. Almost six in ten believed that if the occupation forces withdrew, there would be an increase in "inter-ethnic violence" but eight in ten wanted us to get out within a year anyway. That speaks volumes.

And I should add that a majority of both Iraqis and Americans believe the U.S. will not leave if the "sovereign" Iraqi government asks us to. That's a big reason why six in ten Iraqis support attacks on U.S. troops. Question for the strategic class: What's going to change that? Please don't say: "A surge."

UPDATE: "Overwhelming" majorities of Iraqis of every ethnic group solidly reject al Qaeda. So maybe someone can explain to me how our leaving will result in the group taking over the country?

PS: One more piece of polling that I find disturbing enough to share, even though it's not strictly on-topic. According to an AP poll last week, Americans have no clue how much blood is being shed in Iraq in their name:

Americans are keenly aware of how many U.S. forces have lost their lives in Iraq, according to a new AP-Ipsos poll. But they woefully underestimate the number of Iraqi civilians who have been killed.

When the poll was conducted earlier this month, a little more than 3,100 U.S. troops had been killed. The midpoint estimate among those polled was right on target, at about 3,000. [...]

Iraqi civilian deaths are estimated at more than 54,000 and could be much higher; some unofficial estimates range into the hundreds of thousands. The U.N. Assistance Mission for Iraq reports more than 34,000 deaths in 2006 alone.

Among those polled for the AP survey, however, the median estimate of Iraqi deaths was 9,890. The median is the point at which half the estimates were higher and half lower.

Tagged as: iraq, public opinion

Joshua Holland is a staff writer at Alternet and a regular contributor to The Gadflyer.