Poll: Most oppose troop buildup
Resistance to the war and distrust of Bush have grown, a new Times/Bloomberg survey shows.
By Ronald Brownstein, Times Staff Writer
January 18, 2007
WASHINGTON — A strong majority of Americans opposes President Bush's decision to send more troops to Iraq, and about half of the country wants Congress to block the deployment, a Times/Bloomberg poll has found.
As he seeks to chart a new course in Iraq, Bush also faces pervasive resistance to and skepticism about the U.S. commitment — more than three-fifths of those surveyed said the war was not worth fighting, and only one-third approved of his handling of the conflict.
And in a striking measure of people's declining trust in Bush, half said they believed he deliberately misled the U.S. in making his case for invading Iraq.
This is Bush's weakest showing on these questions in a Times poll.
Asked about the president's recent announcement that he would dispatch an additional 21,500 troops to Iraq, three-fifths said they opposed the move, whereas just over one-third backed it.
Even Bush's political base showed signs of cracking: About one-fourth of Republicans said they did not believe the war was worth fighting, and a roughly equal number opposed the troop increase.
"I want us to get out; I want us to leave," said poll respondent Beth Anderson, a Republican from Belle Center, Ohio, who has a son in the Army.
Anderson, an X-ray technician, added: "I think I was one of the biggest, 'Yes, we need to go over there' …. And then, little by little, it just got to be too long and too much, and the cost is, wow, awful."
The poll's findings drive home the extent to which Iraq has politically weakened Bush, whose reelection just more than two years ago stirred dreams among his advisors of cementing an enduring GOP electoral majority in Washington.
The results also underscore the immense challenge confronting Bush: The public's loss of faith in the war's direction, his handling of the conflict and questions about his credibility all make it more difficult for him to rally support for the new direction he argues is necessary to turn the tide.
The Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll, supervised by Times Poll Director Susan Pinkus, surveyed 1,344 adults nationwide by telephone Saturday through Tuesday. It has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.
With attitudes about Iraq weighing heavily against him, Bush's overall job approval rating stood at 39%, with 59% disapproving. Those figures are comparable with what had been Bush's worst showing in a Times poll — last winter, his approval rating was 38%, with 58% disapproving.
On Iraq, 33% approved of Bush's handling of the war, with 65% disapproving.
The sole ray of light for Bush in the poll may be signs of public ambivalence about how Congress should respond to his plans on Iraq. Despite the widespread opposition to the troop escalation, Americans divide more closely on whether lawmakers should try to stop it.
The public clearly wants Congress to address the issue in some fashion: Forty-five percent of those polled said Iraq should be Capitol Hill's first priority, more than double the next-closest issue (dealing with healthcare, which drew 20%).
A narrow majority — 51% — wants Congress to try to block Bush from sending more troops to Iraq, with 25% saying lawmakers should deny funding for the increase and 26% saying they should find other legislative measures to stop him. Forty-one percent said Congress should not attempt to stop Bush, and the rest were unsure.
Carl Edwards, a welder from Morganton, N.C., expressed the divided beliefs of many when he said he wanted Congress to try to prevent the new deployment, but worried about hurting troops already in the field.
"They should stop sending funds to [Bush for more troops], but not cut the military funds down to where it is hurting the soldiers," he said.
Americans divide in similar proportions when asked whether Congress should attempt to require Bush "to begin withdrawing the troops already in Iraq."
Exactly half said Congress should take steps to begin removing troops (42% opposed such an effort).
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