Poll: Most Say No to Iraq ‘Surge’
by Pamela LeaveyIf Bush is looking for a mandate on his plan for a ’surge’ in iraq, he’s got it. But the results sure as hell are not the ones he’s looking for. A new USA TODAY/Gallup Poll taken between Friday and Sunday “shows a daunting sales job ahead for the White House,” with a whopping 61% opposing the troop buildup and the approval rating “of the job Bush is doing in Iraq has sunk to 26%, a record low.”
Among key findings in the poll:
Nearly half of those surveyed say the United States can’t achieve its goals in Iraq regardless of how many troops it sends. One in four say U.S. goals can be achieved only with an increase in troop numbers. Eight in 10 say the war has gone worse than the Bush administration expected. Of those people, 53% say Bush deserves “a great deal” of blame; 41% place a great deal of blame on Iraqi political leaders. By 72%-25%, Americans say Bush doesn’t have a clear plan for handling the situation in Iraq. Congressional Democrats fare only a little better: 66%-25%. Even so, Democrats take control of Congress amid a wave of good feeling. By 2-to-1, Americans say they want congressional Democrats, not Bush, to have more influence over the direction of the nation.
The president’s overall job approval rating is 37%, up 2 percentage points from mid-December.
White House spokesman Tony Snow parried with reporters Monday over congressional and public opposition to the idea of sending more troops.
“I think the public opinion and public support is a very important part of this, and it is not static,” he said. “You know, this is going to be fairly complex, and it’s going to take people a little bit of time to think through, and we will spend a lot of time talking about it because it’s important to do so.”
While Bush has often said his war strategy won’t be based on polls, three of four Americans say the government’s decisions on Iraq ought to be influenced at least a moderate amount by what the public wants.
Views on increased troop levels differ sharply by party. Even among Republicans, though, 30% oppose the idea; 67% support it. Independents are against it by nearly 2-to-1. Democrats oppose it, 85%-12%.
And there is a yawning gender gap: 69% of women oppose an increase, compared with 52% of men.
Good luck getting “the decider” to listen, The Daily Mail reports that even Bush buddy Tony Blair is turning his back on this one:
Tony Blair will make clear this week that Britain is not going to send more troops to Iraq even if the US pushes ahead with a “surge” of 20,000 extra soldiers.
The Prime Minister will insist that the UK will stick to its own strategy of gradually handing over to the Iraqi army, as it has been doing with success in Basra and the south.
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Deficits make sense if you realize that the Republicans are trying to limit future spending options. Bush’s timing for the surge of troops issue makes sense if you realize that he’s trying to diminish the Democrat’s ability to get the media and public to pay attention to issues other than Iraq.
Deficits make sense if you realize that the Republicans are trying to limit future spending options. Bush’s timing for the surge of troops issue makes sense if you realize that he’s trying to diminish the Democrat’s ability to get the media and public to pay attention to issues other than Iraq. The one thing that George has seemed to learn how to successfully do is suck all the air out of the room in terms of media coverage, like the guy at the dinner party who never lets anyone else change the topic.
I served as a marine rifleman in Viet Nam, 1968-69. I’ve read much Viet Nam war literature and published a collection of war poetry, On The Way to Khe Sanh, (three of which appeared in The Iowa Review, Spring 2005), and a memoir, Nam Au Go Go – Falling for the Vietnamese Goddess of War.
Nam Au Go Go is different. It talks about something no one I can find has written about – what violence does to war fighters. How, if combat soldiers and marines see too much, do too much, they can cross a threshold into an adaptation to violence and become addicted to it. When your emotional self is killed off by the insanity of war, survivors of this addiction have a hard time re-connecting with society. Combat is a one-way door. Once you go through, you cannot go back. You are changed.
For a glimpse, go to http://www.johnakins.net
Find Nam Au Go Go on booksellers’ websites.
e: jacolesdad@comcast.net
john akins,
The closest I’ve heard to your explanation of the addiction was from a reporter whose name I can’t think of right now. It was interesting that his attitude was simply, ‘I’m addicted to this whole bloody, corrupted scene’. With out any real message that we need to take this into account and stop creating this change unnecessarily.
History has repeatedly shown that when major armies are disbanded because the country no longer can afford them or need them, the former soldiers become mercenaries and create new conflicts elsewhere. This has been going on the past few decades.
The many psychological aspects of war affect society as much as the warriors. We actually know more about it than the Military-Industrial-Financial-Congressional Complex wants distributed. All the more important that people like you who know first hand, try to communicate this, in as many ways possible.
Thanks for the link.
I was listening to clips from McCain’s Sunday interviews on the idea of raising taxes – or not continuing the cuts – for the wealthy to pay for the surge. Among his unbelievable responses was he didn’t see any need to raise taxes to the rich because of the war.
Uh, then how about the middle class keeps paying only a very small percent of the war costs and the rich pay more taxes to maintain things like NCLB, medicaid, infrastructure rebuilding, national security, etc.
I swear McCain is getting senile.
There are good points in your article. I would like to supplement them with some information:
I am a 2 tour Vietnam Veteran who recently retired after 36 years of working in the Defense Industrial Complex on many of the weapons systems being used by our forces as we speak.
If you are interested in a view of the inside of the Pentagon procurement process from Vietnam to Iraq please check the posting at my blog entitled, “Odyssey of Armaments”
http://rosecoveredglasses.blogspot.com/2006/11/odyssey-of-armaments.html
The Pentagon is a giant, incredibly complex establishment, budgeted in excess of $500B per year. The Rumsfelds, the Administrations and the Congressmen come and go but the real machinery of policy and procurement keeps grinding away, presenting the politicos who arrive with detail and alternatives slanted to perpetuate itself.
How can any newcomer, be he a President, a Congressman or even the new Sec. Def.Mr. Gates, understand such complexity, particularly if heretofore he has not had the clearance to get the full details?
Answer- he can’t. Therefore he accepts the alternatives provided by the career establishment that never goes away and he hopes he makes the right choices. Or he is influenced by a lobbyist or two representing companies in his district or special interest groups.
From a practical standpoint, policy and war decisions are made far below the levels of the talking heads who take the heat or the credit for the results.
This situation is unfortunate but it is absolute fact. Take it from one who has been to war and worked in the establishment.
This giant policy making and war machine will eventually come apart and have to be put back together to operate smaller, leaner and on less fuel. But that won’t happen until it hits a brick wall at high speed.
We will then have to run a Volkswagen instead of a Caddy and get along somehow. We better start practicing now and get off our high horse. Our golden aura in the world is beginning to dull from arrogance.
Why Biden’s Plan makes sense
The key problem is the Kurds, Shiite and Sunni want to have their own homeland unless they are in charge of the other groups. This is why the Biden plan has bipartisan support. What do you think?
ACUF-The now outgoing Central Commander, Gen. John P. Abizaid, told Congress two months ago that more troops were not the answer for Iraq. He specifically said that he had met personally with all of the commanders in the field and all agreed that more soldiers would not help. An anonymous “Army officer who recently commanded a brigade in Baghdad” told the Washington Post bluntly, “The plan will fail.” The “surge” in forces was too small and it did not accord with Iraqi politics because Prime Minister Nouri “Maliki must protect [Moqtada] al-Sadr,” who heads the largest, most aggressive and anti-U.S. Shiite militia but holds 30 seats supporting Maliki’s coalition government.
Each of the Shiite, Kurd and Sunni factions still believe they can prevail at least in slightly larger homelands and have no reason to be reasonable. Based on efforts in Yugoslavia and Lebanon the State Department types think any decent order would take six to 12 years to impose. The generals want none of this. While supporting an increase in troops, cracking down on death squads and ethnic militia, and imprisoning more insurgents, hawks Bing West and Elliot Cohen put the real problem facing the president well. “The paradox of American strategy in Iraq is this: President Bush can achieve success only by threatening to do something he is morally opposed to doing—leaving swiftly and risking chaotic civil strife. If the president showed the same iron will toward Mr. Maliki that he does toward Congress and public opinion, Mr. Maliki would blink first.”
Donald Devine, the editor of Conservative Battleline Online, was the director of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management from 1981 to 1985 and is the director of the Federalist Leadership Center at Bellevue University
Hillary talks out of both sides of her mouth
I saw Hillary Clinton’s speech on C-span when she said if she was President we would have not gone to war in Iraq. Hillary and her husband had more information about why not to go to the war then any other Senator and Congressman.
My question is why did Clinton vote for a war she did not support? And if she voted for the war because of WMD, if we found them how would anything be any different in Iraq? If Hillary supports attacking Countries over WMD does she want to attack North Korea, Iran, Pakistan, Syria…?