Poll: Optimism on Iraq Is Premature
Most Americans Dispute White House Assessment of Weakened Insurgency, Post-ABC Survey Finds
By Richard Morin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, June 27, 2005; 8:42 AM
A majority of Americans reject claims by the Bush administration that the insurgency in Iraq is weakening and are divided on whether victory over the insurgents will have a major impact on terrorism elsewhere in the world, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.
Barely one in five Americans -- 22 percent -- say they believe that the insurgency is getting weaker while 24 percent believe it is strengthening. More than half -- 53 percent -- say resistance to U.S. and Iraqi government forces has not changed.
The Post-ABC poll also found that few Americans agree with Vice President Cheney that the insurgency is in its "last throes." That claim, which Cheney made recently in an interview with Larry King on CNN, has been repeatedly challenged by critics of the administration's Iraq policy and defended by Bush officials.
One in four Americans -- 25 percent -- say they believe that the bloody campaign against U.S. forces and the fledgling Iraqi government is on "its last legs." Even among those who think the resistance is weakening, only half believe that the insurgency is in its final stages.
As with virtually every facet of the Iraq issue, deep partisan divisions were reflected in views of the current state of the insurgency. More than a third of all Republicans -- 35 percent -- said the insurgents were growing weaker in Iraq, compared to 13 percent of all Democrats and 19 percent of all political independents.
The public was sharply divided over another widely publicized claim about Iraq made by a top administration official. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, speaking last week in Brussels, asserted in a address to the 80-nation conference on the reconstruction of postwar Iraq that a victory over anti-government and U.S. forces will be "a death knell for terrorism as we know it" elsewhere. But fewer than half -- 46 percent -- of those interviewed agreed that defeating the insurgents in Iraq would do much to defeat terrorism elsewhere while 53 percent said it would have, at best, only some positive impact on the broader anti-terrorism campaign.
The partisan gap was even wider on the potential impact of a victory over Iraqi insurgents on the overall war on terror. Seven in 1o Republicans said success in Iraq would be a major step in the overall war on terror while an equal proportion of Democrats disagreed.
A total of 1,004 randomly selected adults were interviewed by telephone June 23-26 for this survey. Margin of sampling error for the overall results is plus or minus 3 percentage points.
Complete results of the latest Post-ABC News poll will be available on washingtonpost.com at 5 p.m
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