PIPA/Knowledge Networks Poll: Public Favors Putting Iraq Operation Under U.N. if Other Countries Will Contribute Troops

7/23/2003

From: Steven Kull of PIPA, 202-232-7500

COLLEGE PARK, Md., July 23 -- A new PIPA/Knowledge Networks poll finds that seven in ten Americans say that the US should be willing to put the entire Iraq operation under the United Nations, with joint decision making, if other countries would then contribute troops.

Steven Kull, director of the Program on International Policy Attitudes at the University of Maryland, comments, "Support for sharing the burden is likely enhanced by the public's downbeat assessments about how the operation is going and how difficult the reconstruction effort will be." The percentage saying that the process of rebuilding Iraq is not going well has risen to 57 percent. More striking, only 30 percent believe that Iraq would have a stable government in six months down sharply from 53 percent in April. The percentage believing that Iraq will be "unstable and chaotic" in six months has risen from 42 percent to 65 percent. Only 17 percent say that in Iraq "the greatest challenges are behind us" while an overwhelming 79 percent say that "the greatest challenges remain ahead."

Despite all this pessimism, however, only 9 percent favor withdrawing US troops.

In response to the raging debate about President Bush's incorrect assertion that Iraq sought to acquire uranium from an African country, about half (48 percent) said that the President in some way mishandled the evidence, with 15 percent saying the president "knowingly presented false information," and 33 percent saying the president "assumed that something like this was true, so was not careful about the evidence he used to support his case." Forty-five percent chose the most forgiving option that he was "simply given intelligence that proved to be wrong." Also, simply asked whether when he presented the evidence he "knew it was false" a strong 68 percent said he did not."

These recent revelations still appear to have shaken the public's confidence in the president at least a little. A majority of 61 percent said that it did so to some extent with 21 percent saying "a little," 19 percent "some," and 21 percent "a lot."

It now appears that the president's handling of Iraq is not likely to be a net benefit for his reelection bid. Respondents were asked how the president's handling of Iraq will affect their likeliness to vote for him on a scale of plus 5 (meaning it would very much increase the likelihood) to-5 (meaning that it would very much decrease the likelihood). The mean score was just a hair above a completely neutral score at plus 0.09. A larger percentage (37 percent) said it would increase the likelihood of voting for Bush than would decrease it (29 percent), but those that said it would decrease the likelihood gave more extreme ratings, producing a net wash.

There has been a slight increase in the public's perception that the US government was not entirely truthful when it presented evidence for going to war with Iraq, so that this is now a strong majority position. When it presented "evidence of Iraq having weapons of mass destruction," 63 percent said that it was either "presenting evidence it knew was false," (16 percent -- up from 10 percent in June) or "stretching the truth (47 percent). When the Bush administration presented "evidence of links between Saddam Hussein's government and al-Qaeda 60 percent felt the US government was "presenting evidence it knew was false," (15 percent -- up from 10 percent in June) or was "stretching the truth (44 percent). The poll was conducted with a nationwide sample of 1,066 respondents July 11-20. The margin of error was plus or minus 3-3.5 percent, depending on whether the question was administered to the whole sample or three quarters of the sample.

To view the full report and questionnaire, please go to: http://www.pipa.org/

The poll was fielded by Knowledge Networks using its nationwide panel, which is randomly selected from the entire adult population and subsequently provided internet access. For more information about this methodology, go to http://www.knowledgenetworks.com/ganp.

Funding for this research was provided by the Rockefeller Brothers Fund and the Ford Foundation.