Public opinion in the United States on the invasion of Iraq
For various reasons, mostly related to the unexpected consequences of the invasion, as well as misinformation provided by US authorities, the US public's perspective on its government's choice to initiate an offensive is increasingly negative.
[2] In May 2007, the New York Times and CBS News released similar results of a poll in which 61% of participants believed the U.S. "should have stayed out" of Iraq.
[4] Seven months prior to the September 11 attacks a Gallup poll showed that 52% would favor an invasion of Iraq while 42% would oppose it.
According to the CNN/USA Today/Gallup Poll, conducted on October 3–6, 2002, 53% of Americans said they favor invading Iraq with U.S. ground troops in an attempt to remove Saddam Hussein from power.
[7] Approximately two-thirds of respondents wanted the government to wait for the UN inspections to end, and only 31% supported using military force immediately.
This same poll showed that a majority believed that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, but did not expect UN inspectors to find them.
[8] Polls also suggested that most Americans would still like to see more evidence against Iraq, and for UN weapons inspections to continue before making an invasion.
[2] Following Powell's February 5 speech at the UN, most polls, like one conducted by CNN and NBC, showed increased support for the invasion.
Tim Russert, NBC's Washington bureau chief, said the increases in support were "largely" due to President Bush's State of the Union speech in January and to Powell's presentation on February 5, which most viewers felt offered strong evidence for action against Iraq.
49% of those polled felt that President Bush had prepared the country for war and its potential risks, a 9-point jump from the previous month.
[9] A Gallup poll showed the majority of the population erroneously believed Iraq was responsible for the attacks of September 11.
If the United Nations Security Council were to reject a resolution paving the way for military action, 54% of Americans favored a U.S. invasion.
[11] President George W. Bush's approval rating also jumped at the beginning of the war, going up 13 percentage points at the start of this conflict (Smith and Lindsay).
[12] An August 2004 poll showed that two-thirds (67%) of the American public believe the U.S. went to war based on incorrect assumptions.
[16] Finally, in the year leading up to the presidential election in 2004 (November 3, 2003, and October 31, 2004) public opinion began to fluctuate significantly in response to major events in the war, including the capture of Saddam Hussein and the Abu Ghraib prison scandal.
The coverage of the war most often provided reasons for support and rationales for the conflict, with themes most often including "troops", "threat", "freedom", "peace", and "evil".
Americans overwhelmingly approved of President Bush and his decisions in Iraq during the major combat phase of the war.
But in the summer of 2003, after the major combat had ended but U.S. troops continued to take casualties, those numbers began to wane.
Public support went "from a high of more than 55% in mid-December immediately after the capture of Saddam Hussein, to a low of 39% in mid to late June just before the U.S. transferred power to the newly formed Iraqi government."
[17] On July 4, 2005, the National Council of Churches officially took a stand against the Iraq War calling it dishonorable and urging a change in U.S.
[2] On September 10–12, in an Associated Press-Ipsos poll of 1,000 adults conducted by Ipsos Public Affairs, 33% approved of George Bush's handling of the "situation in Iraq", while 65% disapproved of it.
[2] On September 14–16, Gallup conducted a poll asking if the United States made mistake in sending troops to Iraq.
President Obama issued three executive orders in January of 2009, the first calling for the closure of Guantanamo Bay within one year,[26] the second directing the immediate halt of all ongoing military commissions,[26] and the third suspending the CIA's use of "enhanced interrogation.
In June, troops leave their posts in cities in Iraq, passing the duties of safety and security onto the Iraqi military.
[28] At the conclusion of the Iraq War in 2011, Washington Post journalist Peyton Craighill expressed that, in the seemingly poisoned atmosphere of American politics, President Obama's directive to withdraw U.S. forces from Iraq December of that year, was a rare example of a broadly popular policy decision which showed 78% of all Americans supporting the decision.
Public opinion toward the overall success of the invasion of Iraq was at an all-time low in January 2014 following President Obama's decision to pull troops out of the area.
On the other side of the aisle, Democrats have stayed fairly consistent in their views on the conflict, only shifting one percent in the past four years.
