New Polls Says Iraq War Opposition At 60 Percent
A new poll shows opposition to the Iraq war is growing — with most Americans now opposing it:
Sixty percent of Americans oppose the U.S. war in Iraq, the highest number since polling on the subject began with the commencement of the war in March 2003, according to poll results and trends released Wednesday.And a majority of poll respondents said they would support the withdrawal of at least some U.S. troops by the end of the year, according to results from the Opinion Research Corporation poll conducted last week on behalf of CNN. The corporation polled 1,047 adult Americans by telephone.
According to trends, the number of poll respondents who said they did not support the Iraq war has steadily risen as the war stretched into a second and then a third year. In the most recent poll, 36 percent said they were in favor of the war — half of the peak of 72 percent who said they were in favor of the war as it began.
If you project this trending, what can happen to reverse it? And do you see anything like that on the horizon? MORE:
Sixty-one percent, however, said they believed at least some U.S. troops should be withdrawn from Iraq by the end of the year. Of those, 26 percent said they would favor the withdrawal of all troops, while 35 percent said not all troops should be withdrawn. Another 34 percent said they believed the current level of troops in Iraq should be maintained.Asked about a timetable for withdrawal of troops from Iraq, 57 percent of poll respondents said they supported the setting of such a timetable, while 40 percent did not and 4 percent had no opinion. Only half the sample, or about 524 people, was asked the timetable question.
This makes reports even more fascinating that the Bush administration and the GOP plan to paint the Democrats as the party of cut-and-run, and weak on defense in light of Tuesday’s victory of anti-war candidate Ned Lamont over Senator Joe Lieberman in the Connecticut Democratic primary. With several Democratic political bigwigs pledging support of Lamont and stressing how his election undercores American’s desire for a “new direction,” the GOP will reportedly try to turn the 2006 elections into a referendum on the Democrats’ fitness to wield power, rather than George Bush and the GOP’s record in power.
If these polls continue along this course, this could be a risky strategy…but, then again, the GOP and the White House have rolled the political dice before. And won.
10 Responses to “New Polls Says Iraq War Opposition At 60 Percent”
I am seriously sick of this. It was this administration’s policy that lead us to our current weakened position on the world stage. This is the party of responsbility? This is the party of accountability? Give me a break.
This poll shows why the GOP is headed for massive defeat this fall. Republicans could play the “cut and run” card when it looked feasible that we could win in Iraq. In 2004, Iraq did not look like a full-blown civil war. Back in those simpler times, it was the “Sunni insurgents” and the government (which hadn’t yet been elected). But now Iraq is in civil war. And worse, none of the two sides look appealing. Hmmm, should we support the pro-Iranian Shi’ites who were the very first in the Middle East to support Hezbollah? Or should we back the ex-Saddamist Sunnis, some of whom have ties to Al Qaeda?
John Warner has proposed a new Congressional resolution clarifying the US role, now that a democratically-elected government technically exists, but that government has shown no ability to contain a sectarian civil war. What does “stay the course” mean anymore? What course? That’s why 60% oppose the war. And if the GOP wants to run on the Iraq war, be my guest.
Only 26% want us to pull out completely completely?
:headshake:
That sounds… problematic. I can’t find the poll information to check the methology, but that sounds low. I expected something in the mid-30s. After all, nearly 30% of the populace have difficulty agreeing with anything any Conservative does.
Maybe I’m wrong.
It doesn’t sound like a risky roll of the dice to me. Even several generals were planning to move some troops home for a while. Bush would be hard-pressed to get the military to even keep these levels of troops active longer than necessary (it’s ugly on supplies, for starters).
It shouldn’t be too hard for even the Bush press relations corp to paint Democrats as only appealing to the 26% (calling Karl Rove, we need to push Kerry around some more), while playing tunes toward the other 69%.
Gattsuru,
That assumes the Democrats all want “immediate” withdrawal. They don’t. They want some sort of timetable for withdrawal. Only a small number of Democrats want immediate and total withdrawal. The 26% figure makes perfect sense and is consistent with earlier polls. Most people think the war is a failure and want the US to get out as soon as possible. They just don’t want to do so in a messy fashion that leads to mutual genocide. So we have slow-motion genocide or high-speed genocide. That seems to be our options at this point.
The real problem, Gattsuru, is that Americans aren’t sure what the mission is anymore. Platitudes about “freedom,” “democracy,” and “the terrorists,” just don’t make sense in a world where Moqtada Al-Sadr is a part of the democratically elected government. That’s the frustration. What are we doing there?
“I expected something in the mid-30s. After all, nearly 30% of the populace have difficulty agreeing with anything any Conservative does. ”
If the handling or the war itself were of a conservative bent we wouldn’t be in this mess Gatt. They defied a conservative approach to begin with, and my proof is Bush 41′s opinion about invading Iraq. Bush 41 is a conservative, his son, former defense sec. and under sec. are not in the normal sense of the word. A true conservative doesn’t haphazardly start a war. They are prudent, and plan well ahead, and we can tell that wasn’t done at any point with regard to Iraq.
We need traditional conservative thinking about this, and we have none from the whitehouse. Slogans aren’t going to fix this mess, and they don’t have any ideas that aren’t quicky actions for election time. It’s like they have ADD or something unless it’s to rally a segment of the population to vote for them. We can’t afford that kind of “leadership” anymore, we need results and we haven’t gotten any since this started.
We need to pull out of the cities, and set up basecamps in defendable positions. Let the Iraqis go friggen nuts, and get it out of their systems. Perish or rise up and take responsability is the only way this is going to work itself out. But if we just flee, which is starting to look better and better to the public, Iraq will be known as Iran West in less than a year. Bush has stuck us with a mess, and this probably won’t be decided untill well after he is gone.
This will have cost us far more than we can imagine, and will hurt our country’s image, morale and economic situation far more than Bush, and company have, or ever are going to be worth. That is why Bush will be considered one of, if not the worst president ever.
This isn’t sniping, or picking a spat Gatt. It’s damn sad what is comming unless someone majorly picks this country up after he’s gone, be it GOP, Democrat or Indy I don’t care we just need results.
Hahahahaha……..
GOP out in the fall and the troops will be coming home…YES!
I knew my faith in this country was worth the trouble.
Elrod :
It doesn’t matter what Democrats ‘want’. It matters what people think they want. The moonbat fringe (hello, DUmmies!) will push hard against anything that runs any less than full withdrawal, and I have no doubt that the Republican noise machine (read : Fox News) will have no problem showing the lunatics to be running the asylum.
What are we doing? Keeping a country together while ethnic issues are dealt with. France had no problem offering the same to us. We caused this mess through deBaathification, we should at least help end it.
Giving terrorists a nearby and hardened target that can fight is not a bad side effect, in my opinion, although it’s far from the best choice.
Psyt :
That is a remarkably poor tactical decision. Pulling our military out of the cities would kill our relations with the State, and make attacks similar to the Beruit bombing that killed hundreds of Marines more viable. Not to mention that the last time we pulled out in a style like that, it ended up inspiring bin Laden.
Oh, and would also beat the crap out of are recruitment techniques for the Iraqi police and military forces.
I find it hard to believe that the administration hasn’t planned ahead. Made rosy assumptions, sure. Made poor decisions, sure. But even deBaathification (again IMO the worst decision we’ve made in the war) was a decision made for a long-term solution, it just didn’t work as they planned.
Elrod :
This poll shows why the GOP is headed for massive defeat this fall.
You own those words .
Neo-con Max Boot is now in favor of a troop reduction.
In fairness to him, he does say he’d prefer a troop increase. But he realizes that is unlikely.
Quoting the second-to-last sentence: “But at this point, I am also open to a substantial reduction in troop numbers because the current strategy just isn’t working.”
His final sentence in this article is especially chilling, coming from an enthusiastic neo-con. So, if interested, be sure to read it for yourself.
Link HERE.
“That is a remarkably poor tactical decision. Pulling our military out of the cities would kill our relations with the State, and make attacks similar to the Beruit bombing that killed hundreds of Marines more viable. Not to mention that the last time we pulled out in a style like that, it ended up inspiring bin Laden.”
No it isn’t, it’s called making them stand up for themselves. Unless we should do it for them for another 10-15 years with american blood. And the american answer to that is becomming a louder hell no every day. Our relations to the State are awful, and tenuious at best depending on what day it is. How in the world would removing our troops from the cities make them more likely to get attacked Beirut style??? You’d have to be close to them to get attacked like that. Well unless a Iraqi Bin Laden resides inside the country us removing ourselves to guard entry points rather than guard city streets might actually make rearming the bad guys harder. And also cut the black market flow of arms from outside countries a much tougher issue, but we can’t while the majority of our troops play Iraqi cop for them.
“Oh, and would also beat the crap out of are recruitment techniques for the Iraqi police and military forces.”
You mean the Iraqi 2= year trained army that can’t do anything without us holding their hands? Or the Shiite death squads run out of the Iraqi police forces? Pulease, our own army gets 6-8 weeks from induction to battlefeild so the Iraqi’s should in most respects ahve the best trained military on the planet by now. Anyways the recruitment in those respective units are being used to arm sectarian factions after they quit.
“I find it hard to believe that the administration hasn’t planned ahead. Made rosy assumptions, sure. Made poor decisions, sure. But even deBaathification (again IMO the worst decision we’ve made in the war) was a decision made for a long-term solution, it just didn’t work as they planned.”
They haven’t planned ahead at all Gatt, no amount of softballing for them is going to cover the obvious. What didn’t work was them planning, they relied of faith based planning….they had faith they would eventually plan.
It’s an unmitigated disaster