So too did the relatively short duration of the war, the fact that Saddam's forces did not use chemical or biological weapons, and a patriotic reflex among the British, political analysts in London said.

The most recent poll, in the Guardian newspaper on Tuesday, indicated that 63 percent now supported the decision to take military action.

That was a radical turnaround from the 52 percent who were opposed in mid-February, when an estimated one million people joined the biggest peace march ever seen in London.

The ICM telephone survey of 1,002 adults was conducted last Friday through Sunday, hard on the heels of fall of Baghdad to US marines. Twenty-three percent said they disapproved of the war.

"As soon as war starts, people realise that soldiers risk their lives, and there is a tendency to support them and show support to the government," said Nick Sparrow of ICM, one of Britain's biggest polling organisation.

Such a patriotic phenomenon has been seen in past conflicts involving British forces -- during the Falklands War in 1982, the 1991 Gulf War and the 1999 Kosovo conflict.

Nicholas Gilby, of the MORI research group, stressed the impact of television reports from the front lines.

"The message given by the pictures shown by the media was, 'the war is over and Saddam Hussein has gone' and 'the Iraqi people welcome (the coalition soldiers) as liberators'," he said.

David Mephem of the Institute for Public Policy Research, a London think tank, said Britons' pre-war concerns had included "the fear of use of chemical weapons, worries that this has international legitimacy, concern also about humanitarian impact and the impact it might have on the stability of the region, and severe scepticism" about US President George W. Bush and his motives.

"The most logical explanation" for the turnaround in public opinion, Memphem said, was that the war was "relatively short, with a relatively small number of civilian casualties."

"For many people, it appears not to have turned out as badly as they were fearing and anticipating," he said.

The analysts disagreed, however, on the exact moment when public opinion began to swing.

"We noticed the mood started to change a week before the war" when French President Jacques Chirac said he would veto a final UN resolution endorsing a war on Iraq, said Peter Kellner, president of the YouGov research group.

"He was found then to be an intransigent leader," Kellner said. "Tony Blair was seen as more reasonable, and not so much in the pocket of George Bush."

But Mepham thought the shift happened in the last week of the three week conflict, when Baghdad was taken by US troops and British forces consolidated their control in southern Iraq.

Mepham said the rapid advance towards Baghdad helped ease public fears that the war might turn into a Vietnam-type quagmire.

The potent image of Saddam's statue being pulled down on April 9 amid euphoric crowds in the center of in Baghdad was enough to convince fence-sitters amongst the British public, Sparrow said.

In any event, he added, supporting the winner is a constant in times of war.

SPACE.WIRE