Americans are against unilateral war in Iraq
A Knight Ridder poll suggests that 83% of the country supports war - as long as it is backed by the U.N.
By Martin Merzer
Knight Ridder News Service
With U.S. troops heading for the Persian Gulf, Americans say in overwhelming numbers that they oppose unilateral U.S. military action against Saddam Hussein's Iraq, according to a national Knight Ridder poll.
A robust majority of Americans - 83 percent - would support going to war if the United Nations backed the action and it was carried out by a multinational coalition. But without U.N. approval and allies, only about a third of the public would support a war with Iraq.
"This... is a worldwide effort to eradicate terrorism," said Robert Black, 57, a firefighter from Easton, Pa. "It should not be the United States going it alone and picking and choosing what country we want to take care of this week or this month."
The poll highlights the Bush administration's political and diplomatic quandary.
Unambiguous evidence that Iraq has nuclear, biological or chemical weapons is a key requirement for the broad international support that Americans crave. Yet a majority of poll respondents, while convinced that Iraq harbors such weapons, said they doubted that U.N. inspectors would find them.
Many said President Bush had not effectively explained why military action might be required. Nearly one in five said they still did not believe Iraq posed a serious threat to the United States.
"We have been given no compelling reasons for going to war," said Bill Quarton, 52, of Ann Arbor, Mich., who was among the respondents who said they were opposed to unilateral U.S. action against Iraq.
"Our government acts as if it knows something terribly important and we should go ahead with this, but we haven't seen anything to substantiate it," he said. "The whole scenario makes me very uncomfortable."
The survey, conducted Jan. 3 to Jan. 6 by Princeton Survey Research Associates, questioned 1,204 adults, and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.
Most Americans do not want to rush into war, the poll found. Sixty-eight percent of respondents said the United States should continue to work toward achieving its goals in Iraq without war. Only 27 percent favored quick military action.
Still, more than 60 percent of those surveyed would support an eventual war if it were the only way to topple Hussein or end the threat of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction.
Arguments against war are much less compelling to Americans than arguments in favor of military action. In particular, the arguments that war with Iraq will hurt the economy, damage relations with our allies, or divert attention and resources from the goal of tracking down those responsible for the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, don't carry much weight, the poll found.
Two-thirds of the respondents said they thought they had a good grasp of the issues surrounding the Iraqi crisis, but closer questioning revealed large gaps in that knowledge. For instance, half of those surveyed said one or more of the Sept. 11 hijackers were Iraqi citizens. In fact, none were.
The informed public is considerably less hawkish than the public as a whole, the poll found. Those who show themselves to be most knowledgeable about the Iraqi situation are significantly less likely to support military action, either to remove Hussein or to disarm Iraq.
Asked to rank the threats facing the United States, more than twice as many respondents (49 percent of the total) chose al-Qaeda as the greatest peril as chose Iraq.
With war looming and another crisis brewing with North Korea, the survey found Americans exhibiting considerable uncertainty and ambivalence.
Among other things, they are evenly divided about Bush's effectiveness in explaining what is at stake in Iraq and why U.S. military force might be employed. Forty-eight percent said he had not clearly laid out his rationale for a war against Iraq; 46 percent said he had.
The result shows some slippage for the President since September, when other polls asked a similar question. Then, 52 percent thought the President had clearly explained his position; 37 percent disagreed.
"He's the best," said Jose Velez, 25, of Lehighton, Pa., near Allentown. "After Sept. 11, President Bush didn't take any chances, and this is part of that."
Dan Yeager, 24, of Grand Ledge, Mich., saw it differently.
"I think going after Iraq is just for Bush's own popularity and to finish off his father's work," Yeager said. "He's not clear about why he wants to go to war. I think he just wants to do it and he's just saying, 'Back me.' "
Yeager and many other Americans remain worried about the economy.
As a group, respondents were evenly split when asked whether foreign threats or the economy should be the administration's top priority.
"We're going to spend a lot of money sending all these troops to Iraq and right now we have a problem of our own with the economy," said Lydia Sepulveda, 41, of Weston, Fla. "A lot of people are without work."
Still, the 27 percent who think Iraq should be the administration's top foreign-policy priority are more likely than others to want the White House to devote most of its time to an overseas crisis rather than the economy. Fifty-two percent of those people feel that way. Only 42 percent of those who think that al-Qaeda or North Korea should be the top priority want the White House to place that issue ahead of the economy.
When it comes to North Korea, a majority think the United States is imperiled by that hard-line regime and should maintain or enhance its military presence in South Korea.
But there is little support for military action against North Korea. Seventy-nine percent of those surveyed said the crisis should be dealt with by diplomacy; only 15 percent said the United States should prepare to take immediate military action.
"It should be resolved diplomatically, absolutely," said James Webb, 45, an unemployed shipping clerk from Philadelphia. "It boils down to something my grandmother told me: They're making war because they have too many people to take care of... . So we need to deal with that."
Returning to the Iraqi crisis, a commanding 91 percent of those surveyed believe that Hussein was concealing nuclear, chemical or biological weapons. Sixty-five percent said U.N. inspectors aren't likely to find those weapons.
If war proves necessary, Americans seem willing to tolerate a long military presence in Iraq. Sixty-six percent of those surveyed said they would support eventual military action even if it required U.S. troops to remain in Iraq for five years.
The survey also demonstrated that many remained altruistic and idealistic. They worry that the Iraqi crisis could mark a fundamental shift in American attitudes toward war.
Two-thirds of the respondents said Hussein's record of using chemical or biological weapons against his own people provided a good reason for going to war, the same number who cited American self-defense against a terrorist attack.
Forty-six percent of those surveyed said the possibility of a high casualty rate among Iraqi civilians was a good reason not to go to war.
The nation is evenly divided over the Bush administration's advocacy of preemptive strikes, launched before an enemy attacks U.S. interests at home or abroad.
Forty-three percent say the policy violates American ideals and could establish a dangerous precedent.
"We should be the country that sets the standards," Quarton said. "This amounts to punishing the criminal before the crime is committed."
Darius Transky, 65, is part of the 45 percent who could not disagree more. The retired Trenton high school teacher faulted Americans for failing to take quicker action throughout history.
"It's not in the American tradition, but it should've been. Americans always react after we get attacked," he said. "It's good to be preemptive: better to get them before they get us."
As one might expect, support for war among Democrats and independents was much more conditional than support among Republicans.
While Republicans widely endorse the policy of preemptive strikes and would support a war with less than the full support of U.S. allies, Democrats and independents tend to see preemptive strikes as bad policy and make their support for war contingent on U.N. backing.
Americans are divided on the use of nuclear weapons. Forty-six percent would approve of a nuclear response if Iraq used chemical or biological weapons; 45 percent would not.
Asked if Israel would be justified in responding with nuclear devices to an Iraqi chemical or biological attack, 60 percent said yes; 30 percent said no.
"It would be a grave error," Quarton said about the use of nuclear devices under any circumstances. "Two wrongs do not make a right. It would poison a large part of the world. It would create hatreds that might take centuries to resolve."
The survey also suggested that the factual underpinnings of many respondents' opinions were shaky.
Nearly one in four respondents said the Bush administration had publicly released evidence tying Iraq to the planning and funding of the Sept. 11 attacks, and more than one in three respondents did not know or refused to answer.
No such evidence has been released.
Posted on Sun, Jan. 12, 2003
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