LOS ANGELES, 19 December 2002 — More than 70 percent of American voters do not believe the Bush administration has made the case for war against Iraq, according to an opinion poll released Tuesday showing a significant diminution in US public support for military action since the resumption of United Nations weapons inspections.
The poll, published in the Los Angeles Times, suggested a national mood increasingly at odds with the saber-rattling tone in Washington. Support for President Bush himself remains strong, but only 20 percent of poll respondents thought he was getting a balanced view from his advisers. More than 50 percent thought the arguments he was hearing were biased in favor of waging war against Saddam Hussein.
In all, 72 percent said the president needed to make a stronger case for war, including 60 percent of voters from his own Republican Party.
"I’m not against war if it is necessary," one Republican respondent, Kramer Smith of Bloomfield, Iowa, told the pollsters. "But I think we need to be pretty sure before we start pulling in the big guns. If they could put their hands on evidence of real production of weapons of mass destruction, then I would say go ahead and do it."
LA Times polls over the past year show a gradual eroding of support for military action. When President Bush first placed Iraq, along with Iran and North Korea in his now notorious "axis of evil" last January, more than 70 percent of respondents were in favor of war. In August that number was down to 64 percent and in the latest poll it dropped even further, to 58 percent.
In particular, the poll revealed a sharp disagreement with the Bush administration’s current argument that any error or omission in the Iraqi arms declaration now being analyzed by the United Nations would be grounds to launch an invasion. More than 60 percent said war would be justified only if the UN finds a pattern of serious violations involving weapons of mass destruction. Just 22 percent agreed with the administration’s position.
The poll also showed considerable reluctance for a unilateral strike against Iraq. Some 68 percent said the United States should go to war only if it has the support of the international community. Just 26 percent said they would be in favor if the US acted alone. (The Independent)
