New poll: U.S. troops turn on Bush; say Iraq war a mistake

Posted by Joshua Holland at 5:24 PM on December 29, 2006.

It'll be interesting to see how the right's dead-enders try to spin two new polls out this week.

The first was conducted by the Military Times (via USA Today):

The American military, once a staunch supporter of President Bush and the Iraq war, has grown increasingly pessimistic about chances for victory.

For the first time, more troops disapprove of the president's handling of the war than approve of it, according to the 2006 Military Times Poll.

When the military was feeling most optimistic about the war -- in 2004 -- 83% of poll respondents thought success in Iraq was likely. This year, that number has shrunk to 50%.

Only 35% of the military members polled this year said they approve of the way Bush is handling the war, and 42% said they disapprove. While approval of the president's war leadership has slumped, his overall approval remains high among the military.

Just as telling, in this year's poll only 41% of the military said the U.S. should have gone to war in Iraq in the first place, down from 65% in 2003. That closely reflects the beliefs of the general population -- 45% agreed in a recent USA TODAY-Gallup poll.

I should note that the poll was conducted by mail -- which may create a self-selection bias -- and the sample of 945 troops "are on average older, more experienced, more likely to be officers and more career-oriented than the overall military population."

The second study was conducted by the Iraq Centre for Research and Strategic Studies (and reported by UPI):

About 90 percent of Iraqis feel the situation in the country was better before the U.S.-led invasion than it is today, according to a new ICRSS poll.

The findings emerged after house-to-house interviews conducted by the ICRSS during the third week of November. About 2,000 people from Baghdad (82 percent), Anbar and Najaf (9 percent each) were randomly asked to express their opinion. Twenty-four percent of the respondents were women.

Only five percent of those questioned said Iraq is better today than in 2003. While 89 percent of the people said the political situation had deteriorated, 79 percent saw a decline in the economic situation; 12 percent felt things had improved and 9 percent said there was no change. Predictably, 95 percent felt the security situation was worse than before.

They didn't ask folks in the Kurdish autonomous zone, but this accords more or less with earlier polls tof Iraqis nationwide.

Tagged as: iraq

Joshua Holland is a staff writer at Alternet and a regular contributor to The Gadflyer.