AP - A poll of Iraqis commissioned by the U.S.-governing authority has provided the Bush administration a stark picture of anti-American sentiment - more than half of Iraqis believe they would be safer if U.S. troops simply left.
The poll, commissioned by the Coalition Provisional Authority last month but not released to the American public, also found radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr is surging in popularity... 92 percent of Iraqis consider the United States an occupying force and more than half believe all Americans behave like those portrayed in the Abu Ghraib prison abuse photos. The Associated Press obtained a copy of a multimedia presentation about the poll that was shown to U.S. officials involved in developing Iraq policy. Several officials said in interviews the results reinforced feelings that the transfer of power and security responsibilities to the Iraqis can't come too soon. ''If you are sitting here as part of the coalition, it (the poll) is pretty grim,'' said Donald Hamilton, a career foreign service officer who is working for Ambassador Paul Bremer's interim government and helps oversee the CPA's polling of Iraqis. The coalition's Iraq polling of 1,093 adults selected randomly in six cities â Baghdad, Basra, Mosul, Diwaniyah, Hillah and Baquba â was taken May 14-23 and had a margin of potential sampling error of plus or minus 4 percentage points. http://tinyurl.com/yvr75 Gary Denton #1 on google for liberal news
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