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Politics : American Presidential Politics and foreign affairs -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Peter Dierks who wrote (12577)	10/3/2006 12:24:47 PM
From: tejek	Respond to of 71588

NC State Poll: Americans Unwilling to Pay Future Costs of Iraq Oct. 2, 2006 Despite President Bush’s recent series of speeches tying the Iraq war to the broader campaign against terrorism, the results of a new survey out of North Carolina State University suggest that Americans are skeptical of this linkage and appear unwilling to pay the future human and material costs of the war. These results come from a recent national public opinion poll conducted by assistant professor Michael D. Cobb and associate professor William A. Boettcher III, both from the Department of Political Science in the School of Public and International Affairs at NC State. The poll was designed by the Institute for Southern Studies and by the School of Public and International Affairs at NC State. The survey reveals that opposition to the war is tied to perceptions of the current U.S. goal in Iraq. Only 25 percent of respondents view Iraq as “the central front in the war against terrorism.” Indeed, Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice’s framing of Iraq – that the United States is “promoting democracy in Iraq and the Middle East” – is almost as widely held at 24 percent. Even more troubling for the administration is the fact that 30 percent (a plurality) of respondents indicated that the United States is in Iraq to “ensure access to oil,” while an additional 15 percent of respondents volunteered their own explanation, usually tied to administration “incompetence” or “greed.” Growing opposition to the war is most evident in answers to questions about respondents’ willingness to accept the future human and material costs of the ongoing counterinsurgency campaign in Iraq. When asked to provide “an acceptable number of U.S. military deaths” in Iraq, 61 percent of respondents said zero. A second version of the question asked about acceptable casualties to prevent “Iraq from sliding into a civil war”; again a large majority of respondents – 59 percent – indicated zero. When asked later in the survey how much more money the United States should “spend in order to complete the mission in Iraq,” 55 percent of respondents said no additional dollars should be spent. These views are undoubtedly related to the fact that 57 percent of respondents felt that the United States “should have stayed out” of Iraq and that respondents were split 50-50 on whether U.S. efforts in Iraq would succeed or fail. Frustration with the war is further reflected in the fact that only 23 percent of respondents indicated that U.S. troops in Iraq should be “maintained at the current level.” A plurality of Americans – 27 percent – now advocate the complete withdrawal of U.S. troops, while a combined 31 percent of Americans want the number of U.S. troops in Iraq to be decreased “some” or “a lot.” Only 19 percent of respondents want U.S. troop levels “increased a lot” or “increased some.” The poll was administered by Knowledge Networks, Inc., included 1,342 respondents, and was conducted from Sept. 19-26. The margin of sampling error for the national sample is plus or minus 2.7 percent. news.ncsu.edu