Friday, January 30, 2004

Iraq War: Reading a Poll More Closely (1)

A demographer friend of mine reading the previous post pointed out to me that the Pew Research Center Web site gives extensive information on the polls they conduct.

So I looked up the poll released  01/22/04, which appears to be the poll Janet Hook of the Los Angeles Times used in saying that 65% of Americans "thought going to war was the right decision." And, indeed, the Pew Center's own summary says, "Nearly two-thirds of Americans (65%) feel the war was the right decision..."

However, the question that the poll actually asked, according to the questionaire appearing on the same Web site, was (my emphasis), "Do you think the U.S. made the right decision or the wrong decision in using military force against Iraq?" Now, "using military force" is a much wider category of possible actions than "invading Iraq and occupying the whole country with 120,000+ US troops for possibly years to come." Bombing suspected WMD sites would have been military force. Firing missles at the Republican Guards would have been military force.

The following two questions are much more indicative of public attitudes about the war we actually have than the one Hook cited. "How well is the U.S. military effort in Iraq going?" Only 22% said "very well" (which would be the Administration loyalist line), while 51% said "fairly well," 18% "not too well" and 6% "not at all well." All these questions offered a "don't know" option to respondents. Only 3% fell into "don't know/refused to answer" on that question.

(Cont. in Part 2)

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