Troops Support Withdrawal from Iraq

BY DREW BROWN
Knight Ridder Newspapers

WASHINGTON - Nearly three out of four American troops serving in Iraq think U.S. forces should withdraw within a year, and more than one in four say the United States should leave immediately, according to a new poll published Tuesday.
The poll, conducted by Zogby International and the Center for Peace and Global Studies at Le Moyne College in Syracuse, N.Y., was a rare effort to determine the views of American troops serving in a ground war.
Twenty-nine percent of the troops surveyed said U.S. forces should leave Iraq immediately, another 22 percent said they should leave within the next six months and 21 percent said within six to 12 months. Twenty-three percent agreed with President Bush's call for troops to stay "as long as they are needed" and 5 percent were unsure.
David Segal, a military sociologist at the University of Maryland, said that while most service members were more conservative than society as a whole, it wasn't surprising to see them reflect attitudes similar to civilians, who increasingly oppose the war.
Those views aren't necessarily an indication that troops are losing faith in the war, Segal said.
"One could argue that troops are saying, `Hey, we've accomplished a great deal. It's time to get out,' which is what you hear a lot of people in Washington saying," he said.