posted 03-17-2004 05:18 PM            

Survey: Discontent with U.S. Growing Overseas

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Muslim nations are angry at the United States and a growing percentage of Europeans want a diplomatic and military divorce from Washington, according to a survey by the Pew Research Center released on Tuesday.

"There is still considerable hostility toward the U.S. in the Muslim countries surveyed," the survey showed.
"Overwhelming majorities in Jordan and Morocco believe suicide attacks against Americans and other Westerners in Iraq (news - web sites) are justifiable. As a point of comparison, slightly more people in those two countries say the same about Palestinian suicide attacks against Israelis," it said.
"Doubts about the motives behind the U.S.-led war on terrorism abound, and a growing percentage of Europeans want foreign policy and security arrangements independent from the United States," the survey summary said.
"There is considerable support for the European Union (news - web sites) to become as powerful as the United States," it added.
While hatred has diminished, "anger toward the United States remains pervasive" in predominantly Muslim countries surveyed.
While the United States is unpopular in the countries surveyed, Osama bin Laden (news - web sites), thought to be behind the hijacked plane attacks that killed about 3,000 people in America on Sept. 11, 2001, is popular, the survey reported.
The al Qaeda leader "is viewed favorably by large percentages in Pakistan (65 percent), Jordan (55 percent) and Morocco (45 percent). Even in Turkey, where bin Laden is highly unpopular, as many as 31 percent say that suicide attacks against Americans and other Westerners in Iraq are justifiable," according to the report.
Majorities in the four Muslim nations surveyed said the "war on terrorism" is an effort to control Mideast oil and to dominate the world.
"There is broad agreement in nearly all of the countries surveyed -- the U.S. being a notable exception -- that the war in Iraq hurt, rather than helped, the war on terrorism," the report said.
Large majorities in Western European countries opposed to the war agreed that Saddam Hussein (news - web sites)'s ouster would improve the lot of the Iraqi people. However, there was less agreement in Muslim countries, and in Jordan, 70 percent of those surveyed said Iraqis would be in worse shape.
In the larger view, "majorities in Germany, Turkey and France -- and half of the British and Russians -- believe the conflict in Iraq undermined the war on terrorism," the survey found.
According to the survey, majorities in almost every country think American and British leaders lied about Saddam Hussein's regime having weapons of mass destruction. In the United States, the figure drops to three in 10. In Britain, it drops to four in 10.
Both President Bush (news - web sites) and British Prime Minister Tony Blair (news - web sites) are viewed negatively in all countries but their own. However, "U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan (news - web sites) is viewed positively in nearly all nine countries surveyed, with Jordan and Morocco as prominent exceptions."
Surveys for the Pew Global Attitudes Project were conducted Feb. 19 to March 3, 2004, in nine nations under the direction of Princeton Survey Research Associates International.
Telephone interviews were conducted among a nationwide, representative sample of 1,000 adults, 18 years of age or older, in the United States, 500 in Great Britain, 504 in France, and 500 in Germany.
Face-to-face interviews were conducted among a nationwide representative sample of 1,000 adults in Jordan, 1,002 in Russia, and 1,017 in Turkey. The sample in Morocco was exclusively urban, and the Pakistani sample was predominantly urban. Face-to-face interviews were conducted in both nations.

According to Pew, for surveys where the sample size is 1,000 or more (U.S., Russia, Jordan, Turkey, Morocco, Pakistan), the margin of error is plus or minus 3.5 percent.
For surveys of approximately 500 (Great Britain, France, Germany), the margin is plus or minus 5 percent.