Iraqis Demand a US Withdrawal

As a persistent insurgency against the US occupation continued in the Sunni heartland of Iraq this summer, the world's attention was focused on the increasingly acrimonious negotiations over the text of a new Constitution. The failure of Shiite and Kurdish factions to find agreement with Sunni negotiators led to predictions of heightened support for the insurgency among the Sunni population and a determined campaign on their part to reject the Constitution in the October referendum. It would be reasonable to conclude from mainstream press accounts that opposition to the occupation is strong only in Sunni areas.

In fact, with the notable exception of the Kurdish population, support for the American military among Iraqis is virtually nonexistent two and a half years after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein's government. Before January's elections, polls taken by Sadoun Dulaimi (now the country's defense minister) indicated that 85 percent of Iraqis wanted a US withdrawal "as soon as possible." On a recent trip to the country, this journalist found that dissatisfaction with the occupation has, if anything, grown.

There are a litany of reasons for this, from the postinvasion looting that occurred as US soldiers sat idle, to the abuses in Abu Ghraib prison, to the flattening of Falluja and the ongoing operations along the Euphrates River in the western part of Iraq, which inflict widespread destruction and casualties among the local population while failing to remove resistance fighters. Added to this is the frustrating lack of improvement in basic services like water and electricity and the fact that wherever US troops patrol, insurgent attacks and civilian loss of life are sure to follow.

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