Most Americans (55%) favor a firm timetable for withdrawing all U.S. troops from Iraq within a year. That figure includes 37% who favor an immediate withdrawal and 18% who want a timetable that will complete the withdrawal in a year. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey of 1,000 adults found that just 33% believe U.S. combat troops should remain in Iraq "until our mission is accomplished."

These results come at a time when just 33% believe the President's call for a temporary troop "surge" will succeed. Just 37% of Americans believe that the U.S. and its allies are winning the War on Terror. Only 28% give the President good or excellent marks for handling the situation in Iraq.

While favoring a troop withdrawal now, most Americans don't expect that to happen. However, 59% believe it is likely U.S. troops will leave Iraq during the first year of the new President's term in office.

Senator Barack Obama (D) has recently proposed a troop withdrawal plan that would begin May 1 and have essentially all U.S. combat troops out of Iraq by March 2008. Obama's proposal is similar to a recommendation made by the Iraq Study Group—a recommendation that enjoyed strong public support. A separate survey found that most Americans favor reducing the number of U.S. troops in Iraq at this time. Obama is currently running second in polling for the Democratic Presidential nomination.

Twenty-seven percent (27%) of Americans believe that terrorists will take over the Iraqi government when U.S. troops leave. Thirty-one percent (31%) disagree while 42% are not sure.

Rasmussen Reports is an electronic publishing firm specializing in the collection, publication, and distribution of public opinion polling information.

The Rasmussen Reports ElectionEdge™ Premium Service for Election 2008 offers the most comprehensive public opinion coverage ever provided for a Presidential election.

Rasmussen Reports' Election 2006 coverage has been praised for its accuracy and reliability.  Michael Barone, Senior Writer for U.S. News & World Report and co-author of The Almanac of American Politics, mentions, "One clear lesson from the Republican victory of 2004 and the Democratic victory of 2006 is that the best place to look for polls that are spot on is RasmussenReports.com."  And University of Virginia Professor Larry Sabato states, "In election campaigns, I've learned to look for the Rasmussen results. In my experience, they are right on the money. There is no question Rasmussen produces some of the most accurate and reliable polls in the country today."

Rasmussen Reports was also the nation's most accurate polling firm during the 2004 Presidential election and the only one to project both Bush and Kerry's vote total within half a percentage point of the actual outcome.

During both Election 2004 and Election 2006, RasmussenReports.com was the top-ranked public opinion research site on the web. We had twice as many visitors as our nearest competitor and nearly as many as all competitors combined.

Scott Rasmussen, president of Rasmussen Reports, has been an independent pollster for more than a decade. The national telephone survey of 1,000 Adults was conducted by Rasmussen Reports January 31-February 1, 2007. The margin of sampling error for the survey is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. (see Methodology)

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