white male consumer

Support for Iraq War at Lowest Level
35-percentage-point drop from high in ’03
by Bill Nichols and Mona Mahmoud

Support for the decision to go to war in Iraq has fallen to its lowest level since the campaign began in March 2003, according to a USA TODAY/CNN/Gallup Poll released Tuesday.

The findings, made public on the same day that Iraq’s first democratically elected government in 50 years was sworn in, show that 41% say the war was worth it; 57% say it wasn’t.

“The patience of the American public is beginning to get worn down a little bit by how long this is taking,” said Charles Pena, a military affairs analyst at the Cato Institute, a think tank in Washington. “While we have made progress … I think people are just tired of this and want it to be over.”

The poll conducted Friday through Sunday asked 514 adults the question. The margin of error was +/-5 percentage points.

Public support peaked as Saddam Hussein’s regime fell in 2003 when 76% of those polled said the war was worth it.
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Mixed feelings about this latest poll. While decreasing public support for the war is encouraging, the reasons why people are thinking it was a bad idea are all wrong. Charles Pena pegs the decreased support on the length of the occupation, not on ideological or pragmatic opposition. And with the US presence in Iraq most likely required to stay into the foreseeable future (especially with the permanent military bases we are erecting), I expect support will probably continue to drop until whoever is in power sees it politically prudent to cut loses and declare a victory – while entirely removing the occupation troops.

This is obviously not a great solution for anyone involved. We will have entered a country, causing the direct and indirect deaths of hundreds of thousands; toppled the power structure; and then cut ties. It’s a bad situation all around.

These polls use unusually small pools, but considering that they have all along, I doubt the drop in support is a statistical anomaly.