WASHINGTON, 10 May 2007 — Six out of 10 Americans support setting a timetable for pulling US troops out of Iraq, even though a clear majority predicts civil war there if US forces withdraw next year, according to a poll published yesterday.
The USA Today/Gallup poll also found a majority of Americans expect terrorist attacks on the United States regardless of whether US forces pull out in 2008.
The poll results “underscore the limited traction the Bush administration’s arguments have gotten as White House officials and congressional Democrats negotiate an interim bill to finance the war,” USA Today said.
Last week, President George W. Bush vetoed a $124 billion war-funding bill because it called for a phased withdrawal of combat troops starting no later than Oct. 1.
“Six in 10 support setting a timetable for withdrawal and sticking to it regardless of what’s happening in Iraq,” USA Today said. Thirty-six percent said US troops should stay until the situation in Iraq improved.
Only 22 percent of those polled agreed with the administration argument that US forces in Iraq are preventing new terrorist attacks on the United States, the paper said.
Seventeen percent said the US deployment made a terrorist attack more likely, and 58 percent said it had no effect either way, it said.
“If US troops withdraw next year, 68 percent predict a civil war in Iraq, 66 percent the use of Iraq as an Al-Qaeda base and 55 percent new terror attacks on the United States,” USA Today said. “If US troops remain, 47 percent predict a civil war in Iraq, 47 percent the use of Iraq as an Al-Qaeda base and 51 percent new terror attacks on the United States.”
Asked how much they would be bothered if the United States was viewed as having lost the war in Iraq, 55 percent said a great deal or modestly, and 43 percent said not much or not at all. The poll of 1,010 adults taken Friday to Sunday has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points, the paper said.
US Lawmakers in Gitmo Closure Bid
Three Democratic lawmakers on Tuesday introduced legislation calling for the closure of the US ‘war on terror’ camp at Guantanamo Bay, branding it a symbol of US failures and hypocrisy.
“Guantanamo Bay has become a liability. The real and perceived injustices occurring there have given our enemies an easy example of our failures and alleged ill intent,” said Representative Jane Harman.
“The prison is so widely viewed as illegitimate, so plainly inconsistent with America’s proud legal traditions, that it has become a stinging symbol of our tarnished standing abroad.” The bill would require Bush to close the camp in Cuba no later than a year after enactment, and provide various options for inmates including transfer to a US jail, to an international tribunal or possibly release.
Harman warned that no one should see the bill as tantamount to “setting terrorists free,” adding that many of those in the camp were “hard core haters who cannot be rehabilitated.”
“Closing Guantanamo alone will not heal America’s moral black eye. But it is a necessary first step,” she said.
Neil Abercrombie, a Hawaii congressman co-sponsoring the legislation, added: “The Bush Administration has been able to ignore the hypocrisy in preaching about human rights to other countries while detainees who have been accused — but never charged - are denied fundamental justice in Guantanamo.
“However, the rest of the world has not ignored it.” A similar bill was introduced in the Senate by California Senator Dianne Feinstein.
Around 380 inmates are still held at the camp, some have been there as long as five years without being charged.
The Bush administration says they are suspected of links to Al-Qaeda and the Taleban regime in Afghanistan that harbored Osama Bin Laden’s terror group.
