COUNTERING MILITARY RECRUITMENT
Articles: Military Service: General
Troops poll: Pull out of Iraq in six months
Gordon Trowbridge, Army Times
February 28, 2006
About half of American troops in Iraq believe the U.S. military shouldleave the country within six months, and three out of four think they
should pull out within a year, according to a first-of-its-kind attempt
to scientifically gauge the opinion of troops in a war zone.
The poll, released on Tuesday by national pollster John Zogby, includes
face-to-face interviews of 944 randomly selected military personnel at
four large U.S. bases. Among the findings:
• 29 percent said U.S. troops should withdraw immediately. Another 22
percent said the U.S. should withdraw within six months, and 21 percent
within a year. Just 23 percent said they believe troops should remain
“as long as they are needed.”
• 58 percent said the reasons for the U.S. mission in Iraq is clear
in their minds; 42 percent said it was unclear or they were unsure.
• 85 percent said they believed a main reason for invading Iraq was
“to retaliate for Saddam’s role in the 9/11 attacks.” That’s
despite the fact that there is very little concrete evidence linking
Saddam Hussein to al-Qaida, and that several independent inquiries have
found no links whatsoever between Saddam and the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001.
Zogby, a widely recognized pollster who has done work for NBC, the Wall
Street Journal and other organizations, conducted the poll for the Le
Moyne College of Syracuse, N.Y., his alma mater. He said he is unaware
of any previous attempts to independently and scientifically poll troops
deployed to a combat zone.
Stars and Stripes, an independent publication produced under the
auspices of the Defense Department, did an unscientific survey of thousands
of troops in 2003, finding low morale and other issues. In January, the
annual Military Times Poll — which surveys readers of the Military
Times papers as representative of career-oriented troops — found
support for the Bush administration’s policy in Iraq slipped significantly
in 2005.
Zogby said his poll used civilian surveyors to randomly select troops
for face-to-face interviews at four large U.S. bases in Iraq. The
technique is similar to those used by U.S. pollsters to perform exit polls
outside voting precincts on election day.
Zogby said he could not reveal more information on the personnel used
to perform the surveys, or specify which bases were polled, because of
concerns for the security of the interviewers.
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