Most Britons say Iraq invasion a mistake
Tue Mar 20, 12:30 PM ET
LONDON - Nearly six in 10 people in Britain believe it was a mistake to invade
Iraq, according to a BBC poll published Tuesday.
Fifty-five percent of respondents said they felt the war in Iraq has made Britain less safe, and only 5 percent said it left them feeling safer, according to the British Broadcasting Corp. poll commissioned to mark the invasion's fourth anniversary.
"Four years on from the war, most people in the country have now come to the view that the United States and Britain were wrong to take military action against Iraq in 2003," said Nick Sparrow from ICM Research, which conducted the poll.
More than half of respondents, 51 percent, said they would not trust the British government if it said military action was needed elsewhere because a country posed a threat to national security. Thirty-two percent said they would trust the government.
However, 57 percent said they would support sending British troops in overseas for disaster relief missions or to stop genocide — 24 percent opposed such missions.
ICM interviewed 1,019 adults across the country by telephone between March 2 and March 4. The poll had a margin of error of 3 percentage points.
In the U.S., public sentiment toward the war has changed dramatically. Almost three-fourths of people in the U.S. supported the war when it began in March 2003, while one-fourth opposed it, according to Gallup polling at the time.
Last month, AP-Ipsos polling found that not quite four in 10 people surveyed agreed with the decision to go to war and six in 10 opposed.