Britons: Bush threat to world peace

[AYOUB]

British voters see US President Bush as a greater threat to world peace than either the North Korean leader or the Iranian president, according to a poll.

The international survey by ICM for the Guardian newspaper in Britain and publications and newspapers in Israel, Canada and Mexico, exposes high levels of distrust in US policy.

In Britain 69% of those questioned believed US policy had made the world less safe since 2001, with only 7% thinking action in Iraq and Afghanistan had increased global security.

Results also showed opinion against the Iraq war has hardened strongly since a similar survey before the US presidential election in 2004.

In Britain 71% of voters said the invasion was unjustified, a view shared by 89% of Mexicans and 73% of Canadians.

The poll also ranked President Bush with some of his bitterest enemies as a cause of global anxiety.

The US leader is outranked by Osama Bin Laden in all four countries, but the results are close in Britain, where 87% of those questioned think the al Qaida leader is a great or moderate danger to peace compared to 75% who think the same of President Bush.

The US president is also seen as a more dangerous man than Mahmoud Ahmedinejad, President of Iran, who 62% of voters think is a risk, the North Korean leader Kim Jong Il (69%) and the leader of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah (65%).

Only 10% of British voters think President Bush poses no danger at all.

ICM interviewed a random sample of 1,010 adults in the UK by telephone between October 27 and 30 as part of the survey.