By Jim Lobe *
Foreign Policy In Focus
July 3, 2003
Two recent polls show signs of a sharp decline in popular support for the Bush administration's policies in Iraq. One recent survey indicates that solid majorities of people in the U.S. now doubt the truthfulness of Bush administration claims regarding evidence about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and Saddam Hussein's links to al Qaeda, with majorities believing either that the Bush administration claims were "stretching the truth" or deliberate falsehoods. The poll, carried out by the University of Maryland's Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA), also shows a stark decline in public confidence in President George W. Bush and his administration's credibility.
The same poll found that over half of the public (53%) believes that the process of rebuilding Iraq is going either "not very well" (40%) or "not at all well" (13%), and two thirds believe the United Nations should now take the lead both on reconstruction and forming a new government in Iraq. Despite these sentiments, however, 80% of the public say they believe Washington has assumed a "responsibility to remain in Iraq as long as necessary until there is a stable government"--as opposed to withdrawing--down only slightly from 86% in April after U.S. troops established control over Baghdad.
"I don't see anything on the horizon that will make the public want to withdraw," said Stephen Kull, PIPA's director, who added one caveat. "If the perception emerged that Iraqi people wanted us to leave, this could change very quickly."
A second poll published by USA Today, CNN, and Gallup found that 56% of the public still considers that Iraq was worth going to war over. But that number represented a sharp decline of 17% points from a high of 73% in mid-April. The same poll found that Bush's overall job rating still stands at a solid 61%, though markedly lower than the 71% standing he had just six weeks ago.
The most recent poll results are naturally attracting unusual attention both because of growing perceptions in the media that Iraq could become a quagmire for the U.S. military and because the November 2004 presidential campaign is essentially already underway.
Seeds of Problems?
While Bush currently holds a commanding lead over any challenger who is running for the Democratic nomination, his father, who emerged from the first Gulf War in the spring of 1991 with approval ratings approaching 90%, was handily defeated just 18 months later by the governor of Arkansas, Bill Clinton, a relative unknown at a comparable time in the election cycle. "This bears the seeds of potential problems for the president down the road as he looks to re-election," Mark Rozell, a political scientist at Catholic University, told USA Today.
As far as the benefits accrued by Bush from the war, "I think we're very likely on a downward slope," said Kull. "Between now and the elections, it will probably only erode in value." The PIPA poll, which was unusually detailed in its questioning, was conducted with a nationwide sample of 1,051 respondents June 18-25, while 1,003 respondents in the Gallup poll were contacted the last week in June.
The latter found that about 53% of the public expects that WMD will eventually be found in Iraq, down from 84% in the first days of the war. The same percentage said it would matter "a great deal" if they were persuaded that the administration had deliberately misled the public about the weapons. The PIPA poll found that only 32% of the public thought the administration was "being fully truthful" about WMD in Iraq, while 52% said that it was "stretching the truth, but not making false statements," and 10% said the government was "presenting evidence (it) knew was false." In a finding that is likely to put Republican lawmakers on the defensive, 63% of the public said Congress should "investigate" the issue. The Republican leadership has so far resisted even using the word "investigation," although they have gone along with Democratic calls for hearings.
Despite the failure of U.S. forces to come up with any evidence of WMD, 23% of the public believes that WMD has already been found in Iraq, according to the PIPA survey. Kull said he thought such a notion may be ideologically driven in part, because significantly higher percentages of Republicans believed this, particularly "Republicans following Iraq news closely." Eighty percent of respondents said they depended more on television and electronic media for their news, and a particularly high proportion of Republican respondents cited "Fox TV," which has been especially jingoistic in its war coverage, as their main source. Similarly, 52% of respondents said they believed close links between Iraq and al Qaeda have been found; a percentage that rose sharply to 78% among "Republicans following Iraq news closely."
On Iraq reconstruction, only one percent described it as going "very well," while 39% said "somewhat well." This fact that a majority now sees rebuilding developments as "not very well" or "not at all well" marks a sharp reversal from the situation in early May and also helps explain the strong support for the UN "tak(ing) the lead" in both building a new government and in reconstructing Iraq. Two-thirds of the public continue to support the decision to go to war, although only 46% said they though it was "the best thing for the U.S. to do," down slightly from 53% in May. Of that 46%, about half--or 23% of the whole sample--said they would still approve of the decision to go to war even if it turned out that Iraq had no WMD at all.
The PIPA poll also found continued strong support for the UN despite the UN's failure to approve of the Iraq war. Asked whether the U.S. should be willing to take military action to stop a government from conducting large-scale human rights abuses, only 23% of the public said it should do so whether or not it had broad international approval, while 52% said it should do so, but only with international support.
The poll also found that the public was worried about increasingly negative perceptions about the U.S. in the rest of the world. Fifty-four percent said they believe that, on average, people in other countries see U.S. foreign policy as negative, while 19% said they believed foreign attitudes remained positive. That was a major reversal of perceptions just two months ago, when the comparable figures were 34% (negative) and 43% (positive).
Almost three in four respondents said they considered negative opinions of the U.S. abroad to be either a "big problem" or "somewhat of a problem," a view that could also erode popular support for Bush's anti-terrorism policies. "The public tends to view terrorism as something that requires international co-operation," said Kull.
About the Author: Jim Lobe This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it is a political analyst with Foreign Policy in Focus (online at www.fpif.org). He also writes regularly for Inter Press Service.
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