------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> Give the gift of life to a sick child. Support St. Jude Children's Research Hospital's 'Thanks & Giving.' http://us.click.yahoo.com/lGEjbB/6WnJAA/E2hLAA/1dTolB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~->
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A37812-2005Mar15.html 2 Years After Invasion, Poll Data Mixed Doubts About War, Optimism for Iraqis By Dan Balz and Richard Morin Washington Post Staff Writers Wednesday, March 16, 2005; Page A01 Two years after President Bush led the country to war in Iraq, Americans appear to be of two minds about the situation in the Middle East: A majority say they believe the Iraqis are better off today than they were before the conflict began -- but they also say the war was not worth fighting in the first place, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll. The January elections in Iraq have helped to shift public opinion in a positive direction about the future of Iraq and the rest of the Middle East, with a clear majority of Americans (56 percent) saying they are now confident that Iraqi leaders can create a stable government -- a dramatic turnaround since just before the elections. The poll also shows that more Americans believe the war has improved the chances of democracy spreading in the Middle East than believe it has diminished those prospects. Despite the optimism about the future, the poll suggests there has been little change in the negative public opinion about the decision to go to war. Fifty-three percent of Americans said the war was not worth fighting, 57 percent said they disapprove of the president's handling of Iraq, and 70 percent said the number of U.S. casualties, including more than 1,500 deaths, is an unacceptable price. The mixed assessment of the situation in Iraq comes near the second anniversary of the U.S. invasion. It offers a benchmark for measuring the shifts in public opinion that have occurred since Bush launched the war despite opposition from much of the rest of the world. Along with judgments about the war in Iraq, the poll found little appetite for military action against other states Bush has targeted for criticism, including Iran and North Korea. But with Iraq moving toward greater self-governance, Bush does not appear to be under great pressure to remove U.S. forces immediately -- despite criticism of how he has handled the situation there. The poll also comes in the midst of encouraging signs throughout the Middle East, with tensions between Israelis and Palestinians reduced, popular support and international pressure for an end to Syria's occupation of Lebanon, and tentative steps toward democracy in Egypt and Saudi Arabia. Bush has reaped some of the credit for the changes underway in the region, having made the promotion of democracy there and elsewhere the central theme of his second-term foreign policy agenda. Over the past two years, Americans rallied around Bush in the initial stages of the war but grew increasingly disillusioned as stepped-up insurgent attacks a year ago turned the conflict bloodier. Today, Americans offer a more nuanced assessment of the experience there and its impact both on the United States and the Middle East. Deep partisan divisions remain, with Republicans positive about the decision to go to war and Democrats strongly negative. Foreign policy experts said they found the seemingly conflicting views about the past and the future consistent with long-standing attitudes about the use of U.S. military force. For starters, Americans rank promoting democracy abroad at or near the bottom of acceptable reasons for using military force. "People just think this is not our mission, that we should not be the democracy policemen," said James B. Steinberg, vice president and director of foreign policy studies at the Brookings Institution. "Even though they think they [the Iraqis] are better off, they're leery about the U.S. going out and doing these things." Walter Russell Mead, senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, said the attitudes make it less likely that the Bush administration or future administrations will use the promotion of democracy to justify conflicts. "Americans don't like putting Americans in harm's way and fighting wars for humanitarian reasons," he said, adding in an interview: "It means, by and large, the United States will not be spreading democracy at the point of a bayonet. There really isn't long-term mass support in public opinion for that kind of war." But Bush's advocacy on behalf of democracy in the Middle East may be winning over skeptical Americans, and some advocates of the war believe that could have a lasting effect on opinions. One of those supporters, William Kristol, editor and publisher of the conservative Weekly Standard, said negative judgments about the decision to go to war are understandable, even defensible, given that the administration used the threat of weapons of mass destruction as a cause for war and then never found any in Iraq. Nor, he said, did Bush anticipate or prepare the public for what turned out to be a far deadlier and longer period of U.S. occupation. "Ultimately, events will matter most, not snapshots of public opinion," he said. "If Iraq is pretty stable and democratic and things are improving noticeably in the Middle East, that will be the fundamental judgment of the war." The second anniversary is too early for drawing those kinds of conclusions, given the fluid nature of events in Iraq and elsewhere in the Middle East. One point that is clear today is that Americans saw Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein as a threat long before the war and continue to see him that way. In the new poll, 56 percent said they think Iraq had weapons of mass destruction before the start of the war and 6 in 10 said they believe Iraq provided direct support to the al Qaeda terrorist network, which struck the United States on Sept. 11, 2001. Also, 55 percent of Americans said the administration told people what it believed to be true, while 43 percent believe the administration deliberately misled the country. Retrospective judgments of Bush's decision making are far more negative that they were two years ago as events were unfolding. For the first time in a Post-ABC poll, a majority (51 percent) called the war in Iraq a mistake. On the day Baghdad fell in April 2003, just 16 percent called the war a mistake and 81 percent said it was the right thing to do. A plurality of Americans said the war has damaged this country's standing around the world, with 41 percent saying the U.S. position is weaker, 28 percent saying it is stronger and the rest saying it has made no difference. Two years ago, 52 percent said the war had made the U.S. position stronger, vs. 12 percent who said it was weaker. Still, a majority of Americans (54 percent) said they believe most Iraqis support what this country is doing, and although a majority said the United States is bogged down in Iraq, more Americans believe the United States is making good progress than they did in the fall of 2004. Nor is there great pressure to bring the troops home immediately. A plurality (44 percent) said troop strength in Iraq should be decreased, but only a quarter of the people who said that argued for an immediate withdrawal, translating to 12 percent of the total population. Far more of those calling for a troop reduction support a gradual withdrawal, leaving Bush a relatively free hand to determine the pace of such a move. Party identification remains the great dividing line on public opinion about the war, as it has for the past year. The steady decline of support for the war was driven by growing Democratic opposition to Bush's policies, and those attitudes remain fixed. Four in 5 Democrats said the war was not worth fighting, whereas 4 in 5 Republicans said it was, and similar divisions exist on other judgments about the war. Partisan divisions on prospects for the Iraqis' future exist but are not as stark. Americans are divided over whether the Iraq war makes it more or less likely that Bush will use military force to resolve disputes with other countries, but they are overwhelmingly opposed to such action to deal with Iran and North Korea -- countries Bush has singled out because of their pursuit of nuclear weapons. The public sees North Korea and Iran as threats to the United States, but by sizable majorities they oppose limited military action or invasion against either. Among those surveyed who believe the war was not worth fighting but who see progress in the Middle East, there is clear ambivalence about U.S. policy. Geraldine Schneider, 69, of Sarasota, Fla., called the war "unsuccessful and the wrong thing to do." But she said it has benefited Iraqis. "In some ways they are better off," she said. "They certainly have a little more freedom." Larry Kuebler, 65, of Saginaw, Mich., is cautiously optimistic. "The people who were oppressed have a better advantage than they had before," he said. "Eventually things will get better for Iraqis; when they get their own army, their own police, their own democratic system, they will be better off, in the very long run. But it will take time." Kuebler proudly flies an American flag outside his house. When a local man or woman was killed on injured in Iraq, he would briefly lower the flag to half-staff. "I was moving it up and down every other day," he recalled. "It's at half-staff now, and that's where it is staying. I will not move it until it is over." Assistant polling director Claudia Deane contributed to this report. © 2005 The Washington Post Company Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Nat-International/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
