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July 3, 2003
soft support for Iraq
My Maryland colleagues at the Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA) recently released a national survey concerning Americans' attitudes toward Iraq. I thought these were the highlights:
62 percent of Americans think that the US government was at least somewhat misleading about weapons of mass destruction. But 58 percent still believe that Saddam had wmd's before we invaded.
71 percent think that before the war, the US government implied that Saddam was involved in the 9/11 attacks.
52 percent think that we have found evidence of an Iraq-al Qaeda link, and 23 percent believe that we have found wmd's in Iraq. The latter figure has fallen, however, since May.
53 percent think that the post-war process is not going well.
80 percent think we have a responsibility to stay in Iraq and reconstruct the country.
It seems to me that if no wmd's are found, no link to al Qaeda is discovered, and the postwar reconstruction process remains troubled, then public support for the war will likely erode.
July 3, 2003 12:00 PM | category: Iraq and democratic theory | Comments