USAToday poll says, Americans doubt success, but are not giving up the war.

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WASHINGTON — Most Americans don't believe the United States will succeed in winning the war in Iraq or establishing a stable democracy there, according to a USA TODAY/CNN/Gallup Poll.
But an ambivalent public also says sending troops to Iraq wasn't a mistake, a sign that most people aren't yet ready to give up on the war.

"There's a lot of conflicting impulses here," says Andrew Kohut, director of the non-partisan Pew Research Center. A Pew poll last week also showed crosscurrents in attitudes toward the Iraq war. "People are giving bleak assessments on the one hand, and on the other hand (they're) saying maybe it was still the right thing to do."

The bombings in London this month also have roiled public opinion, intensifying a not-yet-settled debate among Americans about whether the Iraq war has made the United States safer from terrorism.

Strong fears that a family member might become a victim of terrorism spiked in the survey, rising to their highest level since October 2001, just after the Sept. 11 attacks on New York and Washington.

For the first time, a majority of Americans, 51%, say the Bush administration deliberately misled the public about whether Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction — the reason Bush emphasized in making the case for invading. The administration's credibility on the issue has been steadily eroding since 2003.

By 58%-37%, a majority say the United States won't be able to establish a stable, democratic government in Iraq.

About one-third, 32%, say the United States can't win the war in Iraq. Another 21% say the United States could win the war, but they don't think it will. Just 43% predict a victory.

Still, on the question that tests fundamental attitudes toward the war — was it a mistake to send U.S. troops? — the public's view has rebounded. By 53%-46%, those surveyed say it wasn't a mistake, the strongest support for the war since just after the Iraqi elections in January.

i think the way the the poll was conducted is pretty stupid, sayin we doubt about the war and it says people dont believe its a mistake to send the troops, its almost like yadda yadda ya but yadda yadda ya. wen troops are sent to a war, always believe in the troops to help achieve victory, otherwise just say i dont believe we will win and that we regret we allow the troops in.


[edit on 28-7-2005 by deltaboy]

One of Bush's great failings in this present war
has been in communicating to the people effectively
on the proper justification.

Take for example the statistic that 51% of the people
do not believe there was any danger of weapons of
mass destruction in Iraq. This is a statistic that
shows how badly Bush dropped the ball in communicating
this danger.

At the very core of the problem with Iraq was nuclear
weapons and this was covered with much publicity before
the public and witnessed by millions. Yet at no time
did Bush choose to capitalize on this as proper justification
for going into Iraq, and he chose not to make that big of
a deal of nukes to the public. Maybe he thought it would be
too scary. Maybe he thought he would be embarrassed if
inspections found no nukes. Think back to when things were
deteriorating with Iraq, the situation was this:
UN inspectors had gone back into Iraq and were apparently
making progress until one issue came up that Saddam
stonewalled on. That issue was the interview of his
nuclear scientists. Saddam refused Hans Blix the interview
of his nuclear scientist. This was the key point, highly
covered on all the news that broke down UN weapons
inspections. Several trips were made by Colin Powell and
Dick Cheney to get neighbors to convince Saddam that
he had to comply with the interview of his nuclear
scientists and yet Saddam stonewalled. This was all done
while military forces were daily landing in Kuwait, in
order to show the resolve of the US to get this complied
with. Yet Saddam stonewalled. Most of the neighbors
relayed the message to Saddam that he had better comply,
even Mummar Qadafi urged him to comply.

Now any reasonable person could blame Saddam for this
breakdown of UN inspections and the resulting invasion
of Iraq. This point could have been put forth by Bush
many times, when Howard Dean was insisting that Bush
was a liar and that there was no reason to invade Iraq,
that it was all Bush incompetence and lies behind the
whole affair. Bush however did not counter these
charges day after day and week after week while Dean
was making his presidential run. In absence of Bush
defending the invasion on the nuclear grounds Dean
just kept hammering that their were no weapons of
mass destruction, Bush was a liar. Bush should have
reminded everyone of the scenario of how it had played
out, after all it was still pretty fresh in every ones
minds about break down of UN inspections over the
nuclear issue. Bush could have pointed out that if
nuclear weapons were not weapons of mass destruction
then what would you call them? But for whatever reason
Bush never countered the lie that Dean was successfully
selling to a good portion of the population. Dean
was making such headway with this ploy, that John Kerry
stole it from him and made it a center piece of his
campaign that Bush lied, there were no weapons of
mass destruction. Bush still did not pull out the
tapes of the news broadcasts showing Saddam stonewalling
on the interview of his nuclear weapons scientists and
still not remind everyone that this was the exact point
where inspections failed. He never made the point, that
if Saddam truly had no weapons programs in the works,
then why was he stonewalling the inspectors interview
of the nuclear scientists. He did not make the point
that Saddam was the villain here, not Bush. He did
not even try to make this point.

As it turned out, Saddam's nuclear program proved to be
real, not a lie of George Bush. Along about October of
2004 I watched interview on TV of Saddam's top nuclear
scientist. I believe it was on CNN. This scientist estimated
that Iraq would have got to build a bomb within 3 years if
they had not been stopped. He now lives in the US and his
book "The bomb in my garden" came out about that time and
is available from Amazon.com. This was one of the scientists
that Saddam had refused to be interviewed by the UN inspectors.
So Saddam knew exactly what he was doing when he stonewalled
the inspectors. This scientist also gave some details of
what all was buried in his yard awaiting the UN sanctions
to be lifted and inspectors leaving so that they could
get back to work on it. The book detailed Saddams program
that Kerry and Dean were insisting did not exist, and
that Bush was a liar. Now this was in October of 2004
that the interview was on CNN and the book available,
written by Saddam's own nuclear scientist. The election
was still a month off and John Kerry was still running
around telling how Bush lied that their was no threat
from Iraq. You would think Bush at that time might have
at least mentioned the facts concerning the invasion
of Iraq happened because Saddam would not let UN inspectors
interview Saddam's nuclear scientist and he could have
held up the book and said, "This book details Saddam's
nuclear program in the words of his own scientist. It
tells how the program was hidden waiting for UN inspectors
to leave" He could have made reference to the uranium
that had been confiscated there and brought back to
the US. He could have asked, "How come John Kerry thinks
he knows more about Saddam's nuclear program than
Saddam's own nuclear scientist?" Yet Bush did none of
this while letting Kerry continue to call him liar about
WMD. What Bush did do was tell how we should bring
democracy to Iraq. For some reason I think the public
would have been more impressed with keeping nukes out of
Saddam's hands than they have been with bringing democracy
to Iraq.

Now as I put this story forward I can almost see the
die hard Bush Bashers reply. It will be that Bush
bribed or forced the nuclear scientist to write the
book and that there is no truth in the book and that
still there were no weapons programs going
on in Iraq. They will have one thing though that
even they will strain to explain away. That is
How did that lying Bush get Saddam to refuse interview
of his nuclear scientists, when in fact he had no
program. Their answer, "Bush offered him a nice
hidey hole after the war".

In my previous post above I laid out the story
of how there was positively threat of WMD,
in Iraq, nukes in particular and I also noted
the public verifiable sources that prove this
was the cause of the war. Those sources being
Newsweek, Time, CNN, Fox news, and UN archives.
I also noted how most of this was witnessed by
millions while it unfolded.

In spite of this information being public
information and verifiable we still have this
51% of the population who believe that it
did not happen. At the base of this you find
many people making the statement similar to
this, "Its pretty well documented that there
were no WMD". Actually this is not true. What
was documented was that no chemical or gas
weapons were found except a couple occurrences
of gas artillery shells. The problem with those
that keep making these claims is that gas and
chemical weapons actually had nothing to do
with the breakdown of UN inspections. Saddam
specifically refused interview of his nuclear
scientist by UN inspectors. Saddam did not refuse
inspection of Gas and chemical facilities and
sites. The fact that these weapons were not
found after the invasion have nothing to do
with the fact that nuclear weapons were at
the core of the WMD issue and this did turn
out to be real as documented on CNN and the
publication of the book, "The bomb in my
Garden". The ones who have successfully spun
the fact that no chemical weapons were found
to mean that George Bush lied, about WMD,
are forgetting the fact that nukes were the
real fear and that program proved to be real
and hidden just as suspected.

Because this is such an easily provable fact,
it is quite a black mark on how Bush has
let this lie go unchallenged for so long.
This failure of Bush is very important, because
public support of his policies is absolutely
necessary. The fact that he has not countered
these claims puts his mission in possible
trouble.

His second failure in communications has been
his lack of effort to keep support for the
war while it is transpiring. There were many
ways he could have done this, but this also
has been lacking in his communications. Maybe
I will put together some more on this and post
it here.