There have been a number of polls, mostly conducted in February, gauging how Americans are feeling about Iraq, and there are indications in these surveys that the view of how things are going and the chances of success are more positive than they were in the July-November period of last year. However, the latest numbers from Gallup, based on a survey conducted Feb. 21-24, says Americans are as divided as they were last September over whether and how quickly to pull out U.S. troops. And, of course, all this has particular significance for the campaign of John McCain who has made his stay-the-course stand on Iraq a signature issue.
Gallup says 41 percent of Americans favor an immediate pullout, 35 percent want troops to stay until the situation improves, and 18 percent favor an immediate withdrawal. There is no more agreement on how to pull troops out. Eighteen percent favor immediate withdrawal on a timetable, 45 percent gradual withdrawal and 35 percent favor no withdrawal. Most Americans believe that the U.S. will have a significant troop presence in Iraq anywhere from two to five years.
In terms of progress, 40 percent of Americans say the troop surge has made things better, about the same level that has persisted since December. But those marks were much lower in the months before that, with only 22 percent holding that view last July. Thirty-eight percent said the surge has made things worse, which is right at the 2 point margin of error in this poll.
A Pew Research Survey conducted Feb. 20-24 and released on Feb. 28 had some similarities and differences. In that survey, 48 percent of Americans thought that the war was going very or fairly well and the same number thought it was going not too well, or not well at all. That is a stark change from February 2007 when 67 percent of those surveyed told Pew the war wasn't going well, while only 30 percent said it was.
But on bringing the troops home, the Pew survey showed a closer result than Gallup, although the questions may have been posed somewhat differently: 49 percent wanted to bring them home as soon as possible (although most of those defined this as a gradual withdrawal over the next year or two) while 47 percent favored keeping the troops in Iraq. That compares to February 2007 when those wanting to bring the troops home outnumbered those who wanted them to stay by 53 percent to 42 percent.
The Pew survey also had reported that those who thought the U.S. effort in Iraq would ultimately succeed outnumbered the doubters by 53 percent to 39 percent, compared to 47 percent to 46 percent in February 2007. But most Americans, by a 58 percent to 40 percent margin, believe going to war was the wrong decision, a number that has not changed much since last year.
In a posting yesterday, Pew suggested a possible link between the simultaneous increase in the numbers of Americans belieiving progress was being made in Iraq, with a sharp decline in news coverage of Iraq and public interest in Iraq news. Pew said the percentage of Americans who were aware of the corrrect numbers of U.S. military casualties had declined significantly. In a "News IQ" multiple choice test, 28 percent got the number correct in the latest survey - about 4,000 - compared to 54 percent in August 2007. Most of those who were off underestimated the number of deaths - 35 percent said about 3,000 and 11 percent said about 2,000.
Pew correlated this with figures provided by the Project for Excellence in Journalism which reported there had been a drop in the percentage of stories about the war from 15 percent of the newshole in July, 2007 to 3 percent last month.
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Comments
What a horrible headline. More Positive. If you read the article they are More Positive but compared the the las figure almost anything would be. More people disagree that the war is going well, that it was a good decidsion to go, etc. The only number that has a majority of (that would be considered Positive) is the number in PEW 53% that think we will ultimately suceed. Also A LARGE MAJORITY 59% want an immediate withdrawl or Pullout. But since they are essentially the same thing, The person writing the headline decided to say they are divided. Usually I like your stuff, but the headline is crap. It should read. Its lame that you would have 1 positive number in the whole article, and one huge number and manage to mangle both.
Americans Still Not Sold on IRAQ most want immediate Withdrawl
Posted by: calraider
| March 13, 2008 11:29 AM
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