'Most Americans now feel Iraq war was wrong'

By Afp, Washington
For the first time, a majority of Americans believe the Iraq war was the "wrong thing to do", according to a poll published yesterday in The Wall Street Journal.

Fifty-three percent of those asked in the Harris Interactive survey felt that "taking military action against Iraq was the... wrong thing to do", against 34 percent who thought it was correct, the newspaper said.

The percentage of people opposing the US-led invasion of the country in March 2003 was up from a figure of 49 percent in a parallel poll in September, rising above 50 percent for the first time since the surveys began.

A year before, in September 2004, both sides were even at 43 percent.

The latest poll also found that 66 percent of Americans believed President George W. Bush was doing a "poor" or "only fair" job of handling Iraq, against 32 percent who deemed it "excellent" or "pretty good".