Gallup poll: Iraq

The other Gallup Poll thread reminded me of a story I heard on the BBC about this:

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PRINCETON, NJ -- Five years after the United States launched major air strikes on Iraq to remove Saddam Hussein from power, 42% of Americans believe history will judge the conflict a success, while 54% predict it will be remembered as a failure.



This generally negative indictment of the Iraq war is similar to the view 59% of Americans now hold that sending U.S. troops to Iraq in the first place was "a mistake." Only 42% of Americans considered sending troops to be a mistake shortly after the first anniversary of the invasion that began on March 19, 2003, but by 2005, the figure was regularly 50% or more, and it has approached 60% for about the past year.



...[F]ive years after President Bush directed the U.S. military to launch major air strikes on Iraq to drive Saddam Hussein out of power, a majority of Americans believe he overstated the dangers of that regime. More specifically, 53% agree with the statement that "the Bush administration deliberately misled the American public about whether Iraq had weapons of mass destruction," while 42% disagree.

A majority of Americans came to this damning conclusion about Bush in 2005, and have since maintained it.




Aside from whether Americans believe the administration lied about the threat Iraq posed, many Americans simply believe the threat didn't exist. More than half of those who consider the war a mistake (representing 32% of Americans) say they hold that view because they believe the United States lacked sufficient justification to invade Iraq in the first place. Significantly fewer (18% of Americans) cite mishandling of the war effort as the main reason they consider it to have been a mistake. Another 8% say both reasons are equally important to their criticism of the invasion.

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source

Ouch, basso. Your full court press Clutch BBS propaganda campaign doesn't seem to be working.