Blair winning support for war - poll

British support for the war against Iraq and faith in Tony Blair as a leader is slowly creeping up, a new poll reveals

In just six days, the number of people who think Britain and the US are right to take military action against Iraq has risen from 50% on March 18 to 56% on March 24.

Trust in the Prime Minister to make the right decisions regarding the war has also jumped from 55% to 65% in the same time frame.

The YouGov war poll, conducted for the Daily Telegraph, quizzed 976 adults over the Internet.

A massive 84% of people believe the war is either going very well (20%) or fairly well (64%) from the coalition forces' point of view. But the number of people who thought the war would be over within hours or days has dropped dramatically.

On March 18, a significant 15% thought the war would only last a few days, but this has dropped to 3%.

However the predicted time scale remains short - 40% believe the war will be over within a week or a fortnight. When it came to the Prime Minister, the public broadly supported his claims regarding Iraq.

The overwhelming majority - 93% - agreed with Mr Blair's statement that if terrorists obtained weapons of mass destruction, they would pose a massive threat to "our economics, our security and world peace".

A large proportion - 88% - also agreed that removing Saddam Hussein would prove a "blessing" to the Iraqi people. But only 49% believed that if the coalition had not acted against Iraq, then Saddam would have provided terrorist groups with weapons of mass destruction.

Regarding civilian casualties, a huge 89% believed these should be kept to a minimum even if it meant a longer war.

Slightly fewer, but still a clear majority of 68%, thought the US and British forces were proving successful in trying to do so.

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