Large majorities of Iraqis believe that the US administration has no intention of ever withdrawing its military forces from their country and that reconstruction efforts have been incompetent at best, according to a new survey released on Tuesday.

At the same time, however, only 35 per cent of Iraqis — most of them Sunni Arabs — believe that coalition forces should withdraw within six months, although if they did so, majorities said it would have a beneficial impact, as many prominent Democrats and other war critics have argued.

Scepticism about US plans in Iraq is particularly pronounced among the country’s Sunni population, who were far more negative about virtually every aspect of post-invasion Iraq than their counterparts in the Shia and Kurdish communities, which together are believed to account for 75 to 80 per cent of the country’s population.

Indeed, despite the strong Sunni Arab participation in December’s parliamentary elections, a whopping 88 per cent of the community approves of “attacks on US-led forces” in Iraq, with 77 per cent voicing “strong approval” — a level of hostility that presents a serious challenge for US officials now negotiating with Sunni insurgent leaders. By comparison, 41 per cent of Shiites said they approved such attacks, while 16 per cent of Kurds, by far the most pro-US of the three groups, agreed.

The survey was designed by the Programme on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA) at the University of Maryland for WorldPublicOpinion.org and conducted through face-to-face interviews of 1,150 randomly selected Iraqi adults in all the 18 Iraqi provinces in early January, three weeks after the December elections. While Sunni Arabs were over-represented in the sample, the data was weighted according to each group’s actual estimated share of the total Iraqi population: Shia Arab, 55 per cent; Sunni Arab, 22 per cent; Kurd, 18 per cent; and other groups, five per cent.

The survey results are a mixed bag for the administration of President Bush. His approval ratings in the US have fallen dangerously over the past year, in substantial part due to the perception that he lacks a viable plan for “success” in Iraq. But the survey found nearly 99 per cent rejection of terrorist methods and 97 per cent approval for an inclusive political process. It also found 87 per cent support for establishing a timetable for withdrawal. The shorter period plan was most popular among Sunnis, 83 per cent of whom opted for the six-month option. By contrast, only 22 per cent of Shia respondents favoured the six-month plan, while 49 per cent preferred the two-year period. Ironically, 41 per cent who approve of attacks against US-led forces said they did not prefer the shorter timetable.

Differences between the three groups were even more marked in their assessments of the current political situation. While two-thirds of all Iraqis said the December elections were free and fair and the new parliament will be “the legitimate representative of the Iraqi people”, more than nine out of every 10 Sunnis disagreed with both propositions. The survey found Sunnis in general to be much more negative about the future. While nearly two-thirds of the whole sample said Iraq is headed in the “right direction,” 93 per cent of Sunnis said it was going in the wrong direction. — IPS