Reply #6: Iraqis think few U.S. troops are fighting for them

[sabra]

http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/15933260.htm

Iraqis think few U.S. troops are fighting for them
McClatchy Newspapers

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Ask an Iraqi what American troops are fighting for in Iraq, and the answer likely will be: not for me.

No matter the politics of the respondent, recent interviews with 19 Iraqis, both Shiite and Sunni Muslims, found almost no one who thought the Americans were fighting for them. Only ethnic Kurds, who have established a largely autonomous region in Iraq's north, were willing to say that American troops serve their interests.

Public opinion surveys over the years have shown growing Iraqi discontent with the American presence. The most recent, released in September by WorldPublicOpinion.org, a group affiliated with the University of Maryland's School of Public Policy, found that seven of 10 Iraqis want U.S.-led forces to withdraw within a year. In the same survey, 78 percent said the U.S. presence provokes more conflict than it prevents; 84 percent said they had little or no confidence in the U.S military.

But the unwillingness of Iraqis to say that the Americans were fighting specifically for them underscores how confusing U.S. policy has become in Iraq's complicated political environment of competing sects, ethnic groups, tribes, militias, interest groups and leaders.

...

"America is fighting for America's economic interests," said Ali Salih, 46, a government worker from Tikrit, Saddam Hussein's hometown. "It didn't come to fight terrorism or spread democracy or find weapons of mass destruction. All that was just a cover."