What the Public Thinks of a War in Iraq

TERENCE SMITH:

In recent weeks the country has seen some of the largest anti-war demonstrations in a generation. These have been answered by dozens of rallies supporting the troops and Pres. Bush. To get some insight into the state of American opinion on the issue, I'm joined by Rich Morin, polling director and staff writer for the Washington Post and by Andrew Kohut director of the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press. Welcome to you both.

Andy Kohut, you've been tracking opinion on this for some time now. Can you generalize Americans' view of the — of this prospect right now?

ANDREW KOHUT:

Peace demonstrations notwithstanding worldwide and here, the American public continues to back potential support for potential use of force in Iraq, but with the same qualifications we've seen all along, and the most important qualification is we have to have our allies with us. But what these demonstrations have done is they've increased the view that perhaps our allies aren't with us. We had a 58 percent majority after the Blix report, a contentious U.N. debate saying, "No, we don't have enough allied support." We need to have more. We have to wait. We have to build our coalition. The public is very leery of our being out there as the lone ranger and taking on Iraq.

TERENCE SMITH:

Rich Morin, you had an article this week pulling together a number of polls. What did the survey show?

RICHARD MORIN:

It's interesting. There is broad support for going to war with Iraq, but that support is not unconditional. And it is not equally held, uniformly held by all important voting groups. What we've found is that about a third of Americans support the war without reservation. But one in four Americans do support the war, but they have some serious concerns. And then about 37 percent say we shouldn't go to war. That's important because it tells you that support for this war will very much depend on what happens on the ground. There is not going to be uniformly strong support if there are a lot of casualties, if things go badly for the United States.

TERENCE SMITH:

That's what you found as well, Andy, that the casualties is one of those major reservations?

ANDREW KOHUT:

Casualties is always a concern about war, the duration of this war, and the after-game, how we're going to manage Iraq afterward — terrorism here at home. The American public is 30 percentage points more likely to think that we might have terrorist attacks here than — at this time, than they were compared to January of 1991.

TERENCE SMITH:

So that concern has really gone up.

RICHARD MORIN:

That concern has gone up. It is also important to note that people are more fearful of the kind of terrorists we'll have — attacks we'll have if we don't go to war. They think that there will be continued and increased terrorist attacks unless we deal with the threat now. They do expect some if there is war. They expect more if there isn't.

TERENCE SMITH:

Andy, is this division over this issue on the war having an impact one way or the other on approval rating and view of Pres. Bush himself?

ANDREW KOHUT:

Well, Pres. Bush's approval ratings have been declining. They're now down to 54 percent. But in our polling, we see it more linked to sagging optimism about the economy, not the war. But let's be clear. This is a war for better or worse that has George Bush's name on it. We did a little experiment. We tested support for the war, saying, "Pres. Bush" — "If Pres. Bush said this, would you favor support?" And then did it in another half when we didn't say that. We got the same amount. We got the same levels of support which is another way of saying the public already sees a Bush imprimatur on… on this war.

TERENCE SMITH:

Rich Morin, you broke down the support and lack of support in different categories, by gender and by race and age. Tell me what you found.

RICHARD MORIN:

We found some big difference in each one of those dimensions. There is a huge gender gap on the war. About two-thirds of all men support it, but only about half of all women currently back the war. It's interesting when you look at partisanship, too. The breakdowns reflect the differences of Republican men and Republican women who are slightly less likely to support the war. The converse is true for Democrats. When you look at the race, there are huge differences. About six in ten whites support the war. Almost half, about 35 percent, of all minorities support it — a big, big difference. And black support is even lower.

TERENCE SMITH:

Age?

RICHARD MORIN:

Age was fascinating to us because when we looked at the results, we found the group that was the most — least likely to support this war were older Americans. When we looked at younger people, we saw higher levels of support. So the faces of the demonstrators may be young, but the faces of the oppose — those who really oppose the war are old.

TERENCE SMITH:

Those who perhaps have experienced war?

RICHARD MORIN:

That's the — that is exactly right, people who know that war is uncertain and have lived with the consequences of past war. They can remember that. Young people hear the rhetoric. They see strong words and strong actions and tend to support it. Their lessons are yet to be learned.

TERENCE SMITH:

Andy, what's your reaction to those divisions within the populous?

ANDREW KOHUT:

Very characteristic of war, this age pattern. But there's another thing, and that is religion. We found not much difference among Catholics. The pontific representative was here this week. Catholic support is about as high as Protestant support. White evangelicals who are heavily Republican are backing more. The real gap is with seculars. People who don't go to church are far less likely to oppose the war than people who are religious.

RICHARD MORIN:

There's one important caveat, and that is when you compare the levels of support and the differences in support, this war, the war of Afghanistan, very, very different. Support for that war was across the boards and strong. Not so now.

TERENCE SMITH:

And when you go back to the period before the Gulf War?

ANDREW KOHUT:

The Gulf War, we have the same levels of support in absolute numbers — but it is thinner support. The president doesn't have the same national — international consent that his father had.

TERENCE SMITH:

The coalition.

ANDREW KOHUT:

And that really makes the difference. That's what potentially undermines. The initial reaction of the American public, if and when we go to war, is going to be to back the president. The question is how long will they stay there? And that might be undermined by the fact that the public doesn't think we've had the world with us, particularly if things go wrong. They'll say, "Well, maybe the world is right. Maybe we should have waited."

TERENCE SMITH:

Richard, that suggestion that the key issue here is allies and support and U.N. endorsement, those are the very things that the administration is finding very difficult to get right now.

RICHARD MORIN:

And I suspect we'll be hearing a lot of that this –about precisely that this evening. In our surveys, however, we've asked, how important is support for the United Nations? If the United Nations opposes it, well, about the half the people say, "Well, we support it too." The support really drops considerably. A majority, however, still favors the war — if we have allies, but not U.N. support. If we have some friends in with us, Americans are ready to go.

TERENCE SMITH:

So there is a snapshot of what we think right now as a nation. Thank you both very much.