(Angus Reid Global Monitor) - The vast majority of people in Poland remain opposed to their country’s participation in the Iraq war, according to a poll by CBOS. 81 per cent of respondents are against the presence of Polish soldiers in Iraq, unchanged since June.

The coalition effort against Saddam Hussein’s regime in Iraq was launched in March 2003. At least 4,142 coalition soldiers—including 21 Poles—have died during the military operation. Currently, 900 Polish officers and soldiers are stationed in Iraq. In December 2006, Polish president Lech Kaczynski approved the government’s decision to extend Poland’s mission in Iraq until the end of 2007.

There has been no official inquiry into the actual number of Iraqi casualties. A volunteer group of British and United States academics and researchers—known as Iraq Body Count (IBC)—estimates that more than 75,900 Iraqi civilians have been killed during the military intervention.

On Oct. 21, voters in Poland renewed their legislative branch in a snap ballot called after a coalition government led by the Law and Justice Party (PiS) collapsed. Final results gave the opposition Civic Platform (PO)—led by Donald Tusk—209 seats in the 460-seat lower house, followed by the conservative PiS led by Jaroslaw Kaczynski with 166 mandates, the Left and Democracy (LiD) coalition with 53 seats, and the Peasant’s Party (PSL) with 31 mandates. The PO fell short of the 231 seats required to govern on its own, but is expected to form a coalition with the PSL.

On Oct. 22, U.S. defence secretary Robert Gates said Washington is confident that Poland will remain a key military ally, saying, "We are clearly hopeful that the kind of cooperation we enjoyed recently both in Iraq and Afghanistan on the one hand and negotiations on an agreement on missile defence will continue as before. (...) Obviously we’ll have to have discussions with the new government of Poland in terms of specific future plans".

On Oct. 31, Tusk discussed the coalition effort, saying, "We want to finish the mission in its current form in 2008."

Polling Data

Do you support or oppose the presence of Polish soldiers in Iraq?

Source: CBOS
Methodology: Interviews with 1,385 Polish adults, conducted from Oct. 10 to Oct. 14, 2007. Margin of error is 3 per cent.

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