Sydney Morning Herald - April 1, 2003
Support for the fight growing By Mark Riley, Political Correspondent
Support for the war in Iraq has grown substantially more than a week after the bombing began, but the largest proportion of Australians still oppose the conflict, a new poll has found.
A national Herald-ACNielsen survey conducted at the weekend found that 44 per cent of people now supported the war without United Nations backing.
However, the Prime Minister, John Howard, warned last night that the most difficult part of the campaign lay ahead.
"A street campaign in Baghdad could well be very costly, just how costly and precisely what might precede that I am not going to speculate," he said.
The 44 per cent of people surveyed who said they supported the war has climbed sharply from just 6 per cent in January. At the same time, opposition to the war without UN backing has almost halved from 92 per cent in January to 48 per cent this week.
Of those against the war, 27 per cent said they were opposed because it did not have UN backing and 21 per cent said Australia should not be involved at all.
Of the 1431 people surveyed, 8per cent said they remained undecided.
The poll found support for the war was weakest in the cities, particularly in Sydney and Melbourne, and highest in non-metropolitan areas. It is also in the cities where opposition to the war has been most visible on the streets, in large protest marches.
The United States-led forces launched the invasion of Iraq 12 days ago without winning specific backing from the UN Security Council.
The poll retained the aspect of UN support in its questioning to ensure consistency with earlier surveys. It found that Australia's involvement in the war remained most unpopular with women. Of the women surveyed, 50 per cent were opposed and only 40 per cent in favour. A further 10 per cent remained undecided.
Of the men contacted, 49 per cent supported the war and 46per cent were against, with 5 per cent undecided.
The only category of respondents which produced majority support for war were "upper blue collar workers", of whom 51 per cent agreed with Australia's involvement in the campaign.
Support for the war generally increased with the age of those surveyed. It was lowest among 18- to 24-year-olds at 41 per cent, highest among 40- to 54-year-olds at 46 per cent, and was at 45per cent among those 55 and older.
Speaking on ABCTV's The 7.30 Report last night, Mr Howard conceded that the US's belief going into the war - that the show of overwhelming coalition force would inspire a popular uprising against Saddam Hussein - was misguided.
"The reality is that in 1991 many of these people were encouraged to rebel against Saddam Hussein and they were left in the lurch, and they remember that," he said. "And they suffered horrendous reprisals - horrendous reprisals - as a result."
Also yesterday, defence and intelligence specialist Des Ball, of the Australian National University, said the US and its allies had lost the war in Iraq because the invasion had strengthened the hand of terrorism.
"The coalition faces defeat in the sense that it's likely to emerge from this war with its global interests more threatened, its strategic standing in the world more challenged and its security, the security of the US and its allies, ultimately diminished," he said.