Public pressure on the Iraqi government to disassociate itself from the Bush administration and insist on a timetable for withdrawal is growing in Iraq.

Recent media reports show quite clearly that the Iraqi government under Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has shifted from toeing the Bush administration line on enduring occupation to negotiating a goal of US troop withdrawal by 2010 in the latest security agreement.

Indeed, al-Maliki endorsed Barack Obama's 16-month troop withdrawal plan in an interview with a German magazine in late July, but backed away from that comment after a call from the White House. Still, Iraqi government spokespersons have reiterated 2010 as the best 'horizon' for ending the occupation.

This change of position has come under strong pressure from the Iraqi public. Most Iraqis want 'US troops to leave within a near-term time frame,' reported Steven Kull, director of the Program on International Policy Attitudes, in testimony before a subcommittee of House Committee on Foreign Affairs late last month.

Kull told committee members that the recent polling data gathered by his organization and various media outlets shows that about seven in 10 Iraqis want US forces to leave, with about 60 percent of Iraqis saying the timeline for withdrawal should be one year or less. And more than half believe an announced timeline for US troop withdrawal would strengthen the hand of the current Iraqi government.

Strong Iraqi opposition to an endless occupation of their country has been ongoing as several surveys dating back to 2006, including a State Department poll that showed at least two-thirds of Iraqis wanted the occupation to end.

Kull cited an ABC News survey of Iraqis that showed that 61 percent linked a poor security situation to the presence of US troops.

Iraqi public opinion seems to matter little to the Bush administration, Kull suggested. 'As long as the government wants US troops there, one may believe that it does not matter what the Iraqi public thinks.'

While US Republican politicians like John McCain have touted what they have seen as the accomplishments of the surge, Iraqis are less pleased. A recent British poll, Kull reported, showed only 26 percent of Iraqis view the surge as having succeeded, while 53 percent said that it had not. Other polls suggest that more than half of Iraqis see the influx of new US troops as having made security worse.

Iraqis also seem less concerned about the post-occupation situation in their country. The ABC News poll revealed that about seven in ten Iraqis believe the security situation in the country would either improve or stay the same if US troops left. And regarding the British withdrawal from Basra, at least 60 percent indicated that the security situation there is the same or better.

While Iraqis want to regain sovereignty of their country by seeing US troops leave, the overwhelming majority of Iraqis still want post-occupation cooperation between the two countries, especially in non-military ways, such as community re-building and modernization. Only about 13 percent want the US role to remain unchanged.

Kull then advised the committee that it is very likely that the polling data reveals Iraqis believe that the US is an occupation force. Overwhelming majorities view the US role negatively: no longer as 'liberators'; attempting to establish a permanent occupation with bases; and 'that if the Iraqi government were to tell the US to withdraw its forces, the US would refuse to do so.'

The increasingly negative view of the occupation has led more than 60 percent of Iraqis to admit approval of attacks on US troops, reported Kull.

Kull concluded his testimony by saying that 'it is clear that the Iraqi people are quite eager for the US to lighten its military footprint in Iraq. More importantly it appears that they are eager to regain their sense of sovereignty. As long as they do not have this sense, they are likely to continue to have a fundamentally hostile attitude toward all aspects of the US presence in Iraq.'

Public pressure has also increased on Iraqi parliamentarians, a majority of whom support a timetable for withdrawal, oppose permanent bases, and have rejected the Bush administration's proposed status of forces agreement that would have allowed an endless occupation