Iraqis Want US Out

...even onetime friends. In this Chicago Tribune article mirrored by the Arizona Tribune, we meet restaurant owner Dhiya Nour al-Deen, who had every reason to be US-friendly:

Police officers from a nearby station and workers from an industrial park, flush with disposable income, spent money at his kebab and falafel stand.

His older brother, Alaa, was earning a good salary as a bodyguard for a high-ranking Education Ministry official. At the time of the handover, Deen recalled that he and Alaa thought the Americans had put Iraq on the right path toward forging a lasting democracy.

...and, considering the standard argument for why the US has to say, every reason to hate the armed resistance:

In the past 12 months, his brother was killed in an assassination attempt on the Education Ministry official, his restaurant was badly damaged by three car bombings targeting the neighboring police station...

...but, what he says is:

"Nothing will change until the Americans leave," Deen, 33, said at his home in Baghdad's Saydiyah neighborhood. "The resistance will not stop until the Americans go away. Once they leave, we can then only figure out if there is any hope of the Sunnis and Shiites coming together."

...and for an American paper, to sum up Iraqi public opinion the following way, explicitely, rather than precede a few quotes from people balanced for pro-US and critical views with spin, is something rather bold:

Many Iraqis interviewed said they believe U.S. officials have too much influence in the nation's important decisions and the government is far too dependent on the Americans for Iraqis to place much stock in their sovereignty.

"This is not a democracy," said Sarah Abdul Kareem, 21, a Shiite. "This is chaos."