Sounds like sour grapes to me or a truly biased bent on the part of you and your sources. The fact is that the PR campaign has been extraordinarily effective. You may not have liked it, but those are the facts. Just look at the polls.
C2@proofinthepuddingbubba.com
story.news.yahoo.com
Poll Sees Americans Taking Bush Line on Iraq
Thu Oct 10, 5:23 PM ET
By Randall Mikkelsen
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Most Americans accept arguments by President Bush (news - web sites) for a potential war against Iraq: that it may soon have a nuclear weapon and the surest way to avert the threat is to oust Iraqi President Saddam Hussein (news - web sites), according to a poll released on Thursday.
The findings came as the House of Representatives voted to grant Bush the power to launch a military attack on Iraq if needed. The Senate is expected to follow suit.
The poll by the Pew Research Center for People and the Press, an independent opinion research group, found that debate over Iraq was having little impact on next month's elections, which will determine control of Congress.
According to the poll, 86 percent of those surveyed believed Saddam had nuclear weapons or was close to acquiring them, and 66 percent believed he was involved in the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States.
Bush cites the attacks as demonstrating the need to act against Saddam, and has linked his campaign against Iraq to the "war on terrorism" he launched last fall, but he has not established a direct link between Sept. 11 and Iraq.
Bush has also warned that Iraq could build a nuclear weapon within a year if it can get enriched uranium.
"Clearly, the president's major arguments in favor of taking military action against Iraq are resonating with the public," the Pew center said in its report on the poll.
Furthermore, 85 percent of those surveyed believed that the Saddam must be ousted -- rather than simply disarmed -- to deal with the threat posed by Iraq.
The survey of 1,513 people was taken Oct. 2-6, before Bush made a prime-time speech on the Iraqi threat. It had an error margin of 3 percentage points.
Opponents of attacking Iraq say a war would destabilize the Middle East and detract from the war on terrorism and say a resumption of U.N. arms inspections of Iraq would be sufficient to avert any threat posed by Saddam.
Mirroring other surveys, the Pew poll found that 62 percent of Americans favored military action against Iraq. But it also said nearly half of those surveyed were concerned a war against Iraq would harm the U.S. image among Muslim nations, and 40 percent said they expected large U.S. casualties.
The poll also found the debate over Iraq, although it was closely followed by the public, was having little impact on the battle for control of Congress in the Nov. 5 election. |
