Seventy-one percent of Iraqi citizens want the US to withdraw troops within a year, according to a recent World Public Opinion poll. An “overwhelming majority believes that the US military presence in Iraq is provoking more conflict than it is preventing and there is growing confidence in the Iraqi army,” the WPO report said. Also, the survey showed that six in 10 Iraqis support attacks on US-led forces because more Iraqi ethnic groups think the US government plans to keep permanent bases in that country. Among different ethnic groups, opinion differs on how soon American troops should leave, although no group favors an open-ended commitment to stay. Only nine percent of Iraqis favor such a plan compared with a January 2006 survey that found 29 percent favored a long commitment. Read the complete survey results here.
Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III chaired a China-focused military briefing Oct. 27, part of a biweekly series of briefings with senior military commanders about China’s growing threat in the wake of an orbital hypersonic weapon test that elicited public worries from the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. “What we…