US: President George Bush will tonight make a crucial live TV address to the American people from Fort Bragg army base in North Carolina amid fresh evidence of domestic concern over the continued violence in Iraq.
In the latest in a series of gloomy polls for his administration, a joint Washington Post- ABC News survey released yesterday showed that a majority of Americans reject claims that the insurgency in Iraq is weakening and are divided on whether victory over the insurgents will have a major impact on terrorism in the world.
Barely one in five Americans (22 per cent) say they believe the insurgency is getting weaker, while 24 per cent believe it is strengthening.
More than half, 53 per cent, say resistance to US and Iraqi government forces has not changed.
The poll also found that only one in four Americans agree with vice-president Dick Cheney's recent comments that the insurgency is in its "last throes".
The claim, made during an interview with CNN, has been repeatedly challenged by critics of the administration's Iraq policy and defended by Bush officials. Two other opinion polls in the last 10 days have underlined the profound unease in America over a conflict and reconstruction effort that has already cost more than 1,700 US lives.
One study found that 59 per cent of Americans now oppose the war and another that almost six in 10 disapprove of the administration's conduct of the war and its aftermath.
With no sign of the insurgency waning, the US said yesterday it planned to expand its prisons across Iraq to hold up to 16,000 detainees.
The prison populations at three military complexes throughout the country - Abu Ghraib, Camp Bucca and Camp Cropper - have almost doubled from 5,435 in June 2004 to 10,002 now, Lieut Col Guy Rudisill, a spokesman for detainee operations in Iraq, told Associated Press. "We are past the normal capacity for both Abu Ghraib and Camp Bucca," Col Rudisill said.
Over the weekend defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld became the most senior figure within the administration to concede that the US army has made contact with insurgents in an effort quell the violence. - (Guardian service)