Posted on 12/18/2005 4:57:27 PM PST by demlosers
WASHINGTON (AP) – A solid majority of Americans oppose immediately pulling U.S. troops out of Iraq, citing as a main reason the desire to finish the job of stabilizing the country, an AP-Ipsos poll found.
About 57 percent of those surveyed said the U.S. military should stay until Iraq is stabilized, while 36 percent favor an immediate troop withdrawal.
A year ago, 71 percent of respondents favored keeping troops in Iraq until it was stabilized.
In the poll, when people were asked in an open-ended question the main reason the U.S. should keep troops in Iraq, 32 percent said to stabilize the country and 26 percent said to finish the rebuilding job under way.
Only one in 10 said they wanted to stay in Iraq to fight terrorism; just 3 percent said to protect U.S. national security.
“You’ve got to finish the job,” said Terry Waterman, a store manager from Superior, Wis. “The whole world is looking to us for leadership. We can’t have another Vietnam.”
Other recent polling has found that when given additional options, many people favor a step somewhere in between having troops leave immediately and staying until the country is stabilized.
After months of unrelenting violence, millions of Iraqis turned out this past week to choose a parliament. Early estimates placed the voter turnout close to 70 percent of 15 million Iraqis voting.
About 49 percent of Americans now say the war with Iraq was a mistake, according to the poll of 1,006 adults conducted Tuesday through Thursday. That compares with 53 percent in August.
Two years ago, 34 percent of those surveyed said the war was a mistake.
Two years ago, after ousted Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was captured, 64 percent of respondents said the war was the right thing to do. Now, 42 percent say it was the right decision.
Over the past two years, some of the biggest shifts on whether the war was a good decision or a mistake have come among married people with children, those with low incomes and those with a high-school education or less.
“Whether the war is a mistake is less relevant than what we should do now,” said John McAdams, a political scientist at Marquette University in Milwaukee.
“A fair number of people may think it’s a mistake, but still don’t want to lose.”
These colors don't run
This is what happens when you have only the Democrats and their media yapping and lying for months with NO opposition.
People are now confused as to the reasons we went to Iraq (beyond what we said to the UN) and what we are getting out of it.
I am glad Bush finally woke up but there was no reason to let the Democrats get away with so much damage before he decided to speak up.
Hmmm... I wonder how that is supposed to work in these people's heads?
Polls are crap, but the fact is when you have the Democrat half of the Congress screaming run, when you have most of the MSM screaming run, when you have cowards and people like Sheehan screaming run , the numbers of people wanting to run increase. Add to that RINO's and Republicans without the courage to back the President and you have a formula for failure.
One thing that has certainly happened is the Marxist News Media has learned how to poll better, to get the results they want.
A solid majority does not want to run...most likely higher than these numbers as polls are always slanted towards Dems. I think the interesting thing here is that the majority of Americans don't want to cut and run after the daily onslaught from the Media.
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