Independent: Iraq: Poll reveals hostility to US and support for rebel cleric

"The Bush administration's last remaining justification for the invasion of Iraq has been demolished by a private poll revealing that only 2 per cent of Iraqis regard the occupying forces as liberators.
The poll results are devastating for both President George Bush and Tony Blair, who are fond of saying that future generations of Iraqis will thank them for liberating their country. Tony Blair has consistently said that history will prove him right for engineering the downfall of a cruel tyrant, even if weapons of mass destruction were not found.
President Bush, giving a pep-talk to American soldiers in Florida yesterday, said: "We have come not to conquer, but to liberate people and we will stand with them until their freedom is secure."
Yet the main findings of the poll, which was commissioned by the US-led Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) last month and which was leaked yesterday, reveal that only 2 per cent of the Iraqis polled in mid-May see coalition troops as liberators, while 92 per cent said they were occupiers. In a crumb of comfort for the coalition, only
3 per cent expressed support for Saddam Hussein.
A total of 54 per cent believed that all Americans behaved like the guards at Abu Ghraib. But 71 per cent of those polled in face-to-face interviews in six Iraqi cities said they were surprised by the guards' behaviour.
Safety and security emerged as a major concern for the population in general, as nearly half of Iraqis said they felt unsafe in their neighbourhoods.
Asked whether they would feel safer if the 138,000 US troops left immediately, 55 per cent agreed, nearly double the 28 per cent who held that view in a poll carried out in January.
Asked if the Americans should leave immediately, 41 per cent agreed, while 45 per cent said they preferred US forces to leave once a permanent Iraqi government was installed."