Britons shocked by casualties: Poll

The proportion of Britons who believe the war in Iraq is going well has fallen sharply over the past two days, according to a new opinion poll.

Three-quarters of respondents also feel that the number of coalition troops killed in accidents so far has been unexpectedly high, the YouGov survey for the Daily Telegraph found.

But support for the war effort as a whole remains steady, with 56% of people believing that the US and Britain are right to launch military action against Iraq.

The previous YouGov poll published on Sunday found that 20% of respondents felt the war was going "very well". That figure dropped to 9% yesterday, when the latest survey of 1,003 adults was conducted online.

And the proportion of Britons who think the war is going "very badly" or "fairly badly" has more than doubled to 26% compared with Sunday's poll.

More than half of respondents (54%) say the war is going as well as they anticipated, but only 5% are "pleased" that military action is going "better than expected".

However, 48% believe that the number of Britons and Americans killed by Iraqi troops has been either "fewer" or "far fewer" than could be expected.

The survey also shows that the majority of people (76%) feel the Iraqis are not treating their US prisoners of war properly.

In contrast, 79% believe Iraqi prisoners of war are being treated properly by coalition forces.

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