Alliedassault - Poll finds less support for action against Iraq

Take a look at the numbers for "Should the US send troops if it gets no support form western allies"

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[img]http://i.cnn.net/cnn/2002/US/08/23/cnn.poll.iraq/gallup.pie.charts.gif[/img]

[quote:5b41e]WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A new poll suggests that support for a proposed U.S. attack against the regime of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein has fallen off in the past two months and the public is split over whether the United States will actually be at war with Iraq by the end of the year.

Also, a majority of the survey respondents said they believed the United States shouldn't send in troops if Western allies do not endorse it.

In a CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll conducted Monday through Wednesday, nearly all Americans who responded said they believe that Iraq is a threat to the United States. Only 1 percent said Iraq does not have weapons of mass destruction and is not trying to develop them.

Poll respondents were evenly split, 45 percent to 45 percent, over whether the United States will be at war with Iraq by the end of the year. Just 8 percent said that Saddam is not supporting terrorist groups that have plans to attack the United States.

Respondents said they were less certain that Saddam was involved in the September 11 attacks -- a bare majority believe he was, but a third don't think so and one in eight were unsure.

Only one in five said the United States should attack Iraq without help from allies.

But Bush's popularity does not appear to have political coattails, and the possibility of war with Iraq does not seem to have affected voters' choices in this year's congressional races.

By a 41 percent to 30 percent margin, Americans polled said that Republicans are more likely than the Democrats to make the right decisions on Iraq. In addition, 55 percent of those polled said their votes hinged more on economic conditions than on policy toward Iraq.

Democrats had a six-point edge in the "generic ballot" in July and have an eight-point advantage now.

Even with the vagaries associated with the generic ballot, the relative stability indicates that Iraq and other events in the past month have not affected voting intentions.

Meanwhile, it has been a cruel summer for President Bush's approval rating, which has slipped from 76 percent in June to 65 percent -- however, still relatively high.

The poll surveyed 801 Americans. Its margin of error is 3.5 percent.

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http://www.cnn.com/2002/US/08/23/cnn.po ... index.html