Opposition to Iraq war at new high

LONDON (Reuters) - The public's opposition to the war in Iraq has reached a record high, according to an opinion poll in the Times.

The survey published on Tuesday found 57 percent thought taking military action to oust former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was wrong, compared to 31 percent who supported it.

The same poll in April, 2003, a month after the U.S.-led invasion, found nearly two-thirds of Britons supported the war, compared to 24 percent who thought it was wrong.

Populus questioned 1,504 people over the weekend after three British soldiers died in a suicide bomb attack at a checkpoint near the Sunni Muslim rebel stronghold of Falluja.

Despite opposition to the war in Iraq, the poll found Blair's Labour Party is on course for a third general election win.

It put Labour on 34 percent, just ahead of the opposition Conservatives on 33 percent, a five point rise since early October.

Blair, who swept to power in 1997 with a huge majority, has seen his once sky-high poll ratings eroded over his staunch support for the United States in Iraq.

He faced renewed criticism in parliament last month after agreeing to dispatch 850 British troops from their relatively quiet sector in southern Iraq to volatile areas near the Iraqi capital.

Analysts say Iraq is Blair and his party's most vulnerable link in their bid to win a third term at an election expected in May or June next year.


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Iraqi backup troops
back out of assault

WASHINGTON - Rambos they're not - yet.
Hundreds of troops from Iraq's new army that U.S. forces were relying upon to help in taking Fallujah have either failed to show up for the battle or deserted after they arrived.

"I do have reports of Iraqis not making the movement to Fallujah," said Army Gen. George Casey, overall commander of U.S. and coalition troops in Iraq.

In a phone link to the Pentagon, Casey said he could not confirm the accounts of journalists with U.S. forces at Fallujah that more than 300 troops from an Iraqi battalion of 500 deserted.

But without confirming the reports, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said, "One ought to expect from time to time you're going to see this type of thing."

U.S. troops were leading the way into Fallujah, trailed by Iraqi units, Casey said. Iraqi forces took over a hospital and a railway station yesterday after U.S. troops drove off defenders.

Both Rumsfeld and Casey said Iraqi forces performed well in recent fighting in Najaf and other insurgent strongholds, but Rumsfeld said, "There have been incidents when they have not performed so well."

In April, Marines stopped their assault on Fallujah to allow a "Fallujah Brigade" of Iraqis to take control, but the Iraqi force dissolved or went over to the insurgents. Rumsfeld said it was "hard stuff" to develop noncommissioned and junior officers to instill morale and cohesion in new Iraqi troops.

The Iraqis also come under pressure from their ethnic and religious groups to reject cooperation with the Americans.

Iraq's Muslim Clerics Association issued a statement warning Iraqi troops outside Fallujah that "history will record every drop of blood you spill in oppressing the people of your nation."

Casey and Rumsfeld said training Iraqis to provide their own security is the cornerstone of U.S. policy in Iraq. Once the city falls to the coalition, Casey said, U.S. troops will patrol with Iraqis, but the goal is to have "Iraqi security forces take over the presence in Fallujah."

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Aljazeera News Station Targeted

Fox News confirms it, truth first casualty of war.

by Jeff Hook

U.S. forces have begun the battle for Fallujah in a black of night, lightning attack. Bulldozers and tanks are crashing into the city from the north, through the back alleys -- a strategy designed to maximize 'night-vision' capabilities and avoid car bombs and improvised explosive devices believed to be planted along main roads.

Monday night, in an interview with a Fox News military analyst, Brit Hume reported that Aljazeera's Fallujah headquarters would be "one of the first targets" of the attack.

Leaning over a large satellite image of the city, Hume and the analyst plotted the two-pronged attack for the national television audience. While pointing to a specific location on the map, the retired general described Aljazeera as a "dirty little propaganda machine for the insurgents" and said, "Last time they showed pictures of civilian causalities; that's not going to happen this time."

Mr. Hume expressed no concern whatsoever about the apparent U.S. decision to, essentially, execute fellow journalists for revealing inconvenient facts. In fact, Hume did not react at all to the comments.

Although Aljazeera irked both the U.S. media and the Bush administration even before Washington invaded Iraq as the first step in its plan to remake the Middle East on a "democratic" model, the attacks turned vicious after the channel aired lived coverage of the U.S. military's heavy bombardment of Fallujah last April. Aljazeera was one of the only news networks broadcasting from the inside, relaying images of destruction and civilian victims -- including women and children.

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