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Withdrawal timetable aside, every Anbar respondent in our survey opposed the presence of American forces in Iraq — 69 percent “strongly” so. Every Anbar respondent called attacks on coalition forces “acceptable,” far more than anywhere else in the country. All called the United States-led invasion wrong, including 68 percent who called it “absolutely wrong.” No wonder: Anbar, in western Iraq, is almost entirely populated by Sunni Arabs, long protected by Saddam Hussein and dispossessed by his overthrow.
What They’re Saying in Anbar Province
By GARY LANGER
IN his address to the nation on Thursday, President Bush singled out progress in Anbar Province as the model for United States success in Iraq. The president’s claims echoed those made earlier in the week by Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top American commander in Iraq, in his Congressional testimony. And they raised a question worth examining: Do United States military alliances with Sunni tribal leaders truly reflect a turning of hearts and minds away from Anbar’s bitter anti-Americanism?
The data from our latest Iraq poll suggest not.
Al Qaeda, it should be said, is overwhelmingly — almost unanimously — unpopular in Anbar, as it is in the rest of Iraq. But our enemies’ enemies are not necessarily our friends. The United States, it turns out, is equally unpopular there.
In a survey conducted Aug. 17-24 for ABC News, the BBC and NHK, the Japanese broadcaster, among a random national sample of 2,212 Iraqis, 72 percent in Anbar expressed no confidence whatsoever in United States forces. Seventy-six percent said the United States should withdraw now — up from 49 percent when we polled there in March, and far above the national average.
Anything else? Oh, there's a TON of good news here.
Dozens of suspected Sunni insurgents raided Shiite villages north of Baghdad, killing at least 15 people and setting homes ablaze, police said. A bicycle bomb exploded at a cafe serving tea and food during the Ramadan fast in northern Iraq.
The surge of bloodshed -- with 54 people killed or found dead nationwide -- occurred a day after al-Qaida announced a new campaign aimed at countering U.S. and Iraqi claims the terror movement is reeling following the U.S.-led offensives around the Iraqi capital....
Mohammed Azzawi Ali al-Timimi, 30, said he was out buying supplies for his store when the attacks occurred. He returned home to devastation.
''When I came back to my Jichan village I was shocked to find that my father had been killed, along with two of my brothers and my 7-year-old nephew,'' he said. ''Four other houses of my relatives were attacked as well and more than eight cars were burned out.''
Farther north, a booby-trapped bicycle exploded in the religiously mixed town of Tuz Khormato, killing at least five people and wounding 19....
In Baghdad, Iraqi police said security contractors opened fire in a predominantly Sunni neighborhood of western Baghdad on Sunday, killing at least nine civilians.
The U.S. Embassy said contractors working for the State Department were involved in an incident in Baghdad but provided no further details. Leslie Phillips, a State Department spokeswoman in Washington, said an investigation was under way.
And hey, didn't they say we have to take the American face off the occupation?
U.S.-Led Coalition Becoming Ever More All-American
By ANDREW E. KRAMERMOSCOW, Sept. 14 — The former Soviet republic of Georgia will reduce its troop deployment in Iraq to 300 soldiers from 2,000 by next July, in keeping with previous plans, the country’s defense minister said Friday.
Georgia, a nation of just 4.6 million in the Caucasus Mountains, is currently the third-largest supplier of troops for Iraq, after only the United States and Britain.
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