Poll: Majority back Obama's decision to withdraw troops from Iraq

Three out of four Americans support President Obama's announcement to withdraw virtually all American troops from Iraq by the end of the year, according to a new Gallup poll.

Seventy-five percent of the 992 Americans surveyed said they supported the plan to pull out the remaining 43,000 U.S. troops in Iraq, and the support was even greater among Democrats. A whopping 96 percent of Democrats said they approved of Obama's decision, while only 2 percent said they disapproved. Among independents, 77 percent said they approved; 17 percent disapproved.

GOP members of Congress may be criticizing the administration for leaving only a limited presence of American troops attached to the Iraqi embassy, but only a slight majority-52 percent-of Republicans said they disapproved of the decision. Fourty-three percent of Republicans said they approved of the plan.

A 2008 security deal between Washington and Baghdad called for all American forces to leave Iraq by the end of the year, but amid Iraq's continuing political and security challenges, the U.S. tried to persuade the Iraqis to allow 2,000 to 3,000 troops to stay past deadline.

The Gallup poll was conducted between October 29-30 among a random sample in all 50 states, about a week after Obama made the announcement troops would leave Iraq by the end of the year. The sampling error is +/- 4 percentage points.