Support For a War With Iraq Weakens Majority in Poll Critical of Bush's Record on Economy By Dana Milbank and Richard Morin
Seven in 10 Americans would give U.N. weapons inspectors months more to pursue their arms search in Iraq, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll that found growing doubts about an attack on Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.
In addition to the public's skepticism about military action against Iraq, the poll found that a majority of Americans disapproved of President Bush's handling of the economy for the first time in his presidency. The number of Americans who regard the economy as healthy has not been lower in the past nine years, and fewer than half supported the tax cut plan Bush has proposed as a remedy.
The findings underscore twin challenges for Bush as he hits the midpoint of his term. In next week's State of the Union address, Bush will try to rally flagging support for a confrontation with Iraq and convince Americans that he can restore prosperity at home.
Overall, support for Bush has dropped to levels not seen since before the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, with 59 percent of Americans approving of his work. That is still a comfortable level of popularity, and Bush advisers and analysts expect Americans will rally to his side if hostilities begin in Iraq. Still, Bush's overall standing, buoyed by the 71 percent who approve of his work against terrorism, masks deepening concerns about Bush's economic and foreign policies.
On the economy, Americans disapproved of the job Bush has done by 53 percent to 43 percent; that represents a 7-percentage point shift from December. Only a quarter of Americans described the economy as excellent or good, down 10 points from December.
Support for Bush's remedy for the economy, a $670 billion tax cut unveiled earlier this month, has drawn lukewarm support. Most Americans -- 61 percent -- perceive that it benefits the wealthy, compared with 9 percent who think it helps the middle class or the poor and 23 percent who said it treats all equally.
By a margin of 7 percentage points, Americans opposed the cornerstone of Bush's proposal, the elimination of the tax on stock dividends. By more than 2 to 1, respondents said they would rather have more spending on education, health care and Social Security than a tax cut, and a sizable majority said they would rather the money be used to balance the federal budget.
Americans exhibited similar ambivalence about the tax cut Bush proposed in 2001, and he prevailed in enacting most of his plan.
On Iraq, which is likely to dominate political discourse in the coming months, the president has slipped but still has relatively high support. Fifty-seven percent of Americans back military action, down from 62 percent in mid-December; similarly, 50 percent of Americans said they approved of Bush's handling of the Iraqi situation, down from 58 percent a month ago.
Such levels of support are far below the near-unanimous support for an attack against Afghanistan; support for that operation exceeded 90 percent in the weeks before military action began. Eric Larson, who studies national security and public opinion at the Rand research group, said that was a "unique case" because of the direct link to an attack on U.S. soil. A better comparison, Larson said, was the 1991 Persian Gulf War, when support for war was 45 percent before the attack began but quickly rallied. "In comparison to other historical incidents, this seems to be extraordinarily high support for a military option," Larson said.
The survey found Americans evenly split on whether Bush has presented enough evidence against Hussein. Fifty-eight percent said they would like to see more evidence, and 71 percent said the United States should make public its own evidence if the U.N. inspectors can't find hard evidence of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction.
In one clear sign of public caution on Iraq, 43 percent of respondents said the U.N. inspectors should have as much time as they like to scour Iraq. A quarter said the inspectors should have "a few months" or more. Another quarter supported a deadline of a few weeks or less for the inspections.
The findings, coming a day after France suggested it might block a U.N. resolution authorizing force against Iraq, put the public at odds with Bush. The president yesterday voiced frustration with inspections, asking, "How much time do we need to see clearly that he is not disarming?"
Matthew Dowd, who coordinates White House polling, said the slipping support is temporary. "For every president, when the action is close, the public rallies to the commander in chief," he said. He attributed the slippage to "a lot of back and forth in the media" before Bush explains the rationale for war. "As soon as they hear the explanation from him, public opinion will move," Dowd said.
Still, the doubts about Bush's Iraq policy are broad and deep. In barely a month, Bush's performance rating on Iraq has dropped 16 percentage points, to 42 percent, among young people 18 to 30 years old. Bush also lost support among middle-aged Americans but held his ground among seniors.
Democrats express growing opposition to Bush's Iraq policies. In December, slightly more than half of all Democrats disapproved of his handling of Iraq; today nearly three in four don't like the job he is doing, the Post-ABC poll found.
Overall opposition to the war also increased among virtually every demographic group. In the past five weeks, the proportion who rejected using military force in Iraq has increased by 19 percentage points among African Americans, 13 percentage points among those 31 to 44 years old, and 12 percentage points among those earning $50,000 to $75,000.
Bipartisan support for military action that Bush had maintained for more than a year after Sept. 11, 2001, has vanished, the survey found.
For the first time in Post polls conducted since the terrorist attacks, a majority of Democrats -- 57 percent -- rejected taking military action to topple Hussein, up 8 percentage points from mid-December.
Among those political independents and those only loosely aligned with either party, 55 percent favored military action, down from 61 percent last month. Support for the war dipped slightly among Republicans, from 81 percent to 78 percent.
The Post-ABC poll is based on telephone interviews with 1,133 randomly selected adults conducted from Jan. 16 to Jan. 20. Margin of sampling error for the overall results is plus or minus 3 percentage points.
Assistant director of polling Claudia Deane contributed to this report.