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US Public Less Confident on Iraq
After a troubled month for coalition forces in Iraq, US public confidence has declined significantly. Previous months had shown little or no change with attitudes hardening and the pattern of events seeming more established. However, positive ratings remain just above those of November 2003, prior to the capture of Saddam.
Predictably, those who think the situation in Iraq is 'getting worse' have soared from 38% in March to fully 64%, while those determinedly asserting that it is getting better have fallen from 24% to 9%. Perhaps more significantly, part of this decline is translating into criticism of the President. Ratings for Bush's handling of Iraq are down to 43% positive, 55% negative from 49% positive, 49% negative in March. And the proportion confident that US policies in Iraq will be successful has fallen to 26%, down from 31% in March, while the proportion not confident have risen from 46% to 52%.
The good news for the President is that few people are changing their views of the correctness of previous action based on hindsight. 49% still think that 'taking military action was the right thing to do', compared to 51% in March, 52% in February and 55% in January. Those who believe that the level of US casualties in Iraq is 'unfortunate but acceptable' have fallen only slightly from 44% in March to 42% now. Also, the lower ratings for his own handling of the situation are still just above the low point of November 2003 (just before the capture of Saddam) when 41% gave a positive rating and 58% negative. The 'acceptability of current casualties' figure is the only one to have dipped below November 2003 figures.
The Harris Poll(r) was conducted online within the US between April 13 and 18 among 2,415 people aged 18 and over. As usual, 'Propensity score' weighting was also used to adjust for respondents' propensity to be online.
Harris Interactive can be found at www.harrisinteractive.com and the Harris Poll at www.harrispollonline.com
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