Iraq: Still a Matter of Opinion

By Joshua Holland, AlterNet. Posted November 24, 2005.

There's a sizeable plurality of the American public that will never accept a war based on our foreign policy elites' ideological preferences or imperial ambitions. Most aren't pacifists -- that's a straw man -- but they believe war should be an action of absolute last resort.

It's a predictable factor, and one that the hawks that got us into Iraq should have taken into account when they formed their policy. They knew that they could sell the war using modern public relations techniques, a friendly media and the specter of 9/11. But there's a limit to how long you can spin the facts on the ground. Early public support was for the conflict they promised us, not the one we got. But they chose to turn a blind eye to the lessons of recent history, especially those learned during Vietnam.

Americans now have no more confidence in the statements coming from the podia of the Pentagon and White House briefing rooms today than they had during the "Five O'Clock Follies" era in the late 1960s and early 1970s. But despite the fact that they have little or no public credibility, the hawks seem genuinely shocked by our lack of fealty. White House press flack Scott McClellan called John Murtha's (D-PA) call for a redeployment from Iraq "baffling."

What did they expect? Infused with that most stubborn of convictions, American exceptionalism, and burdened with the kind of ignorance one can only attain from studying "The Arab Mind" or "The Clash of Civilizations", they launched their adventure fully confident in the veracity of their propaganda. The results both in Iraq and here at home are as ugly as they were predictable.

The myth of declining public support

The right's vitriol towards those who now oppose the war in Iraq is based on a simple and wholly inaccurate narrative of the public's opinion about war and peace.

In their eyes, only the right's jingoists are virtuous enough, have enough fortitude and are willing to sacrifice in order to accomplish what they never question to be a lofty and noble goal. The public, according to this narrative, is weak and fickle and abandons ship when Americans start coming home in those proverbial flag-draped coffins.

But as Noam Chomsky wrote in The Guardian, "Polls have demonstrated time and time again that Americans are willing to accept a high death toll -- although they don't like it, they're willing to accept it -- if they think it's a just cause."

You'd never guess that from the American press, which almost universally supports the right's narrative. On Sunday, the Houston Chronicle editorialized in typical fashion that, "As the American death toll mounts above 2,000 -- with 10 soldiers killed in the last two days -- opposition to the open-ended U.S. occupation rises at home."

That's based on a superficial analysis of the yes/no "headline" questions that polls ask -- broad questions such as "Do you support the war in Iraq?" Based on questions like these alone, it would appear that support for the war in Iraq has plummeted: in April of 2003 -- just after the invasion -- a CNN/Gallup/USA Today poll found that 73 percent of Americans thought it was "worth going to war in Iraq." This month that same question in the same poll got just 38 percent.

But before it slips irretrievably down the memory hole, let's recall what public opinion was really like -- in various polls' internal numbers -- in the days and weeks leading up to and immediately following the invasion of Iraq in March of 2003.

If you looked inside those polls, it was clear that the administration and their allies couldn't just shift the primary reason we went to war and expect the public to stick with them. The headline in a March 7 CBS poll, just two weeks before the invasion, found that 69 percent approved of "military action to remove Saddam." But by a 48-27 margin respondents said that their primary concern wasn't democracy building or regime change, but "making sure that Iraq is disarmed."

The headline in a Fox News/Opinion Dynamics Poll read "Steady Support for Action Against Iraq" -- seven out of 10 supported the use of force. But look at the secondary questions, which include this one: "The White House estimates the war, including one year of reconstruction and aid, will cost at least $60 billion dollars -- or approximately $300 per U.S. taxpayer." At that price, 69 percent of Americans said it is "worth it to disarm Iraq and remove Saddam" and 23 percent disagreed.

That poll was taken two weeks after Paul Wolfowitz had discounted the $60 billion dollar estimate as being too high. War Pollyannas said that Iraqi oil would settle the tab. As I write this, the cost of the Iraq War to date is over $214 billion dollars.

Joshua Holland is an AlterNet staff writer.

Liked this story? Get top stories in your inbox each week from War on Iraq! Sign up now »