A majority of Britons believe the country should withdraw its troops from both Iraq and Afghanistan within a year regardless of the local situation in either country, a poll published on Monday showed.
Of the 1,722 people surveyed by polling firm YouGov for The Daily Telegraph, 56 percent said British soldiers should be withdrawn from Iraq in 12 months -- 19 percent indicating their support for an immediate withdrawal, with 37 percent favouring pulling out at some point within the next year.
Meanwhile, 53 percent backed British troops being withdrawn from Afghanistan by this time next year, with 22 percent calling for soldiers to be brought back immediately and 31 percent supporting a withdrawal in the next 12 months.
At the same time, 76 percent of respondents, when asked how much confidence they had in the government's handling of the situation in Afghanistan, responded "Not much" or "None at all". Asked the same question over Iraq, 79 percent gave similar answers.
Some 81 percent said they thought the British armed forces were over-stretched at the moment, while 70 percent said there was no clear strategy in Iraq, compared to 64 percent saying the same for Afghanistan.
The polls provide further ammunition for attacks on Prime Minister Tony Blair's military policies after a leaked memo linked them with terrorism at home and his favourite general called the Afghanistan war "cuckoo" on Sunday.
Leaked cabinet documents published in The Sunday Telegraph apparently acknowledge that Britain's troop deployments in both Iraq and Afghanistan have fuelled terrorism in Britain.
In an interview in The Observer weekly, meanwhile, General Charles Guthrie, a former chief of the defence staff, described the deployment of soldiers in Afghanistan as "cuckoo."