Guantánamo, Iraq War hurt U.S. world standing

A BBC poll found world opinion unhappy with U.S. policies on Guantánamo, the war in Iraq and other foreign policies adopted by the Bush administration.

Guantánamo and the U.S.-led war in Iraq are among six topics that scored unfavorably in world opinion in an international poll released by the British Broadcasting Corp. on the eve of President Bush's State of the Union address.

The BBC poll surveyed 25 countries, including waron-terrorism allies Britain and the United States, and found both as harming esteem abroad.

''According to world public opinion, these days the U.S. government hardly seems to be able to do anything right,'' said Steven Kull, director of the Program on International Policy Attitudes at the University of Maryland, which conducted the survey of 26,381 people.

Specifically, the poll showed 73 percent disapprove of the Iraq War while 67 percent disapprove of the way the United States has treated terror suspects detained at the U.S. Navy base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba

Britain's Tony Blair has been a staunch ally and supporter of the war in Iraq, but his government has separately negotiated the release of all British citizens who were taken from Bagram, Afghanistan, to Guantánamo.

The United States holds about 400 men and teens -- none of them a U.S. citizen -- as enemy combatants at the U.S. Navy base in remote southeast Cuba.