{"id":2976,"date":"2023-03-22T20:46:01","date_gmt":"2023-03-22T17:46:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sawtoroba.com\/Eng\/?p=2976"},"modified":"2023-03-22T20:46:01","modified_gmt":"2023-03-22T17:46:01","slug":"a-look-back-at-how-fear-and-false-beliefs-bolstered-u-s-public-support-for-war-in-iraq-by-carroll-doherty-and-jocelyn-kiley-march-14-2023","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sawtoroba.com\/Eng\/?p=2976","title":{"rendered":"A Look Back at How Fear and False Beliefs Bolstered U.S. Public Support for War in Iraq BY CARROLL DOHERTY AND JOCELYN KILEY MARCH 14, 2023"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\n

Twenty years ago this month, the United States launched a major military invasion of Iraq, marking the second time it fought a war in that country in a little more than a decade. It was the start of an eight-year conflict that resulted in the deaths of more than 4,000 U.S. servicemembers and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis.<\/p>\n

The war began March 19, 2003, with an overwhelming show of American military might, described by the unforgettable phrase \u201cshock and awe.\u201d Within weeks, the United States achieved the primary objective of Operation Iraqi Freedom, as the military operation was called, ousting the regime of dictator Saddam Hussein.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n

Yet the military campaign that began so auspiciously ended up deeply dividing Americans and\u00a0alienating key U.S. allies<\/a>. As Americans\u00a0looked back on the war<\/a>\u00a0four years ago, 62% said it was not worth fighting. Majorities of military veterans, including those who served in Iraq or Afghanistan, came to the same conclusion.<\/p>\n

The bleak retrospective judgments on the war obscure the breadth of public support for U.S. military action at the start of the conflict and, perhaps more importantly, in the months leading up to it. Throughout 2002 and early 2003, President George W. Bush and his administration marshaled wide backing for the use of military force in Iraq among both the public and Congress.<\/p>\n

The administration\u2019s success in these efforts was the result of several factors, not least of which was the climate of public opinion at the time. Still reeling from the horrors of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Americans were extraordinarily accepting of the possible use of military force as part of what Bush called the\u00a0\u201cglobal war on terror.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

By early 2002<\/a>, with U.S. troops already fighting in Afghanistan, large majorities of Americans favored the use of military force in Iraq to oust Hussein from power and to destroy terrorist groups in Somalia and Sudan. These attitudes represented \u201ca strong endorsement of the prospective use of force compared with other military missions in the post-Cold War era,\u201d Pew Research Center noted at the time.<\/p>\n

Bush and senior members of his administration then spent more than a year outlining the dangers that they claimed Iraq posed to the United States and its allies. Two of the administration\u2019s arguments proved especially powerful, given the public\u2019s mood: first, that Hussein\u2019s regime possessed \u201cweapons of mass destruction\u201d (WMD), a shorthand for nuclear, biological or chemical weapons; and second, that it supported terrorism and had close ties to terrorist groups, including al-Qaida, which had attacked the U.S. on 9\/11.<\/p>\n

As numerous investigations by independent and\u00a0governmental<\/a>\u00a0commissions subsequently found, there was no factual basis for either of these assertions. Two decades later,\u00a0debate continues<\/a>\u00a0about whether the administration was the victim of flawed intelligence, or whether Bush and his senior advisers deliberately misled the public about its WMD capabilities, in particular.<\/p>\n

In the months leading up to the war, sizable majorities of Americans believed that Iraq either possessed WMD or was close to obtaining them, that Iraq was closely tied to terrorism \u2013 and even that Hussein himself had a role in the 9\/11 attacks. Two decades after the war began, a review of Pew Research Center surveys on the war in Iraq shows that support for U.S. military action was built, at least in part, on a foundation of falsehoods.<\/p>\n

\"\"
\u201cIraq continues to flaunt its hostility toward America and to support terror,\u201d President George W. Bush told the nation in his first State of the Union address in 2002. (Douglas Graham\/Roll Call\/Getty Images)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The path to war: From the \u2018axis of evil\u2019 to a \u2018mushroom cloud\u2019<\/h3>\n

In his 2002 State of the Union address<\/a>, Bush began making the case for why the United States might need to use military force to remove Saddam Hussein from power. \u201cIraq continues to flaunt its hostility toward America and to support terror,\u201d he said. \u201cThe Iraqi regime has plotted to develop anthrax and nerve gas, and nuclear weapons, for over a decade.\u201d<\/p>\n

Iraq was one of three countries, along with Iran and North Korea, that constituted an \u201caxis of evil,\u201d according to Bush. But Iraq drew much more attention from the former president than did those countries. \u201cThis is a regime that has something to hide from the civilized world,\u201d Bush said.<\/p>\n

Even before his speech, Americans were inclined to believe the worst about Hussein\u2019s regime.\u00a0In a survey conducted a few weeks prior to the State of the Union<\/a>, 73% favored military action in Iraq to end Hussein\u2019s rule; just 16% were opposed. More than half (56%) said the U.S. should take action against Iraq \u201ceven if it meant U.S. forces might suffer thousands of casualties.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bush delivered this address, among the most memorable of his presidency, just four months after the terrorist attacks in New York City and near Washington, D.C., and Shanksville, Pennsylvania. Americans remained on edge: 62% said they were very or somewhat worried another terrorist attack was imminent.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n

At that point, more than a year before the United States went to war, Americans overwhelmingly embraced several possible rationales for military action: 83% said that if the U.S. learned that Iraq had aided the 9\/11 terrorists, that would be a \u201cvery important reason\u201d to use military force in Iraq; nearly as many said the same if it was shown that Iraq was developing WMD (77%) or harboring other terrorists (75%).<\/p>\n

Over the next several months, Bush and other senior officials claimed with varying degrees of certainty that there was evidence justifying the use of U.S. military force. In a speech to a Veterans of Foreign Wars convention in August 2002, former\u00a0Vice President Dick Cheney was unequivocal<\/a>\u00a0in asserting: \u201cSimply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction. There is no doubt he is amassing them to use against our friends, against our allies, and against us.\u201d<\/p>\n

On other occasions, Bush and his advisers suggested that even if there was no definitive proof that Iraq possessed WMD, it was too risky not to act, given Hussein\u2019s failure to abide by UN weapons resolutions. \u201cThe problem here is that there will always be some uncertainty about how quickly he [Hussein] can acquire nuclear weapons,\u201d said National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice\u00a0in a CNN interview<\/a>. \u201cBut we don\u2019t want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud.\u201d<\/p>\n

Such warnings resonated strongly with Americans: Most believed that Hussein either already possessed WMD or was close to obtaining them. In October 2002,\u00a065% of the public<\/a>\u00a0said Hussein was close to having nuclear weapons, while another 14% volunteered that he already possessed them. Just 11% said he was not close to developing such weapons.<\/p>\n

That month, Congress overwhelmingly approved\u00a0a resolution<\/a>\u00a0authorizing Bush to use the U.S. armed forces \u201cas he determines to be necessary and appropriate\u201d to defend the security of the United States and enforce UN resolutions on Iraq. (This month, more than 20 years after it passed, Congress is moving to\u00a0repeal the resolution.<\/a>)<\/p>\n

In addition to alleging that Hussein possessed (or was on the verge of obtaining) unconventional weapons, administration officials also repeatedly linked his regime to terrorists and terrorism. For the most part, these allegations were vague and unspecified, but on occasion, senior officials \u2013 including the president himself \u2013 directly connected Iraq with al-Qaida, the terrorist group that attacked the United States on 9\/11. \u201cWe know that Iraq and the al-Qaida terrorist network share a common enemy \u2013 the United States of America,\u201d Bush said\u00a0that October<\/a>. \u201cWe know that Iraq and al-Qaida have had high-level contacts that go back a decade.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n

Neither Bush nor senior administration officials<\/a>\u00a0directly linked Iraq or its leader to the planning or execution of the 9\/11 attacks. Yet a sizable majority of Americans believed that Hussein aided the terrorist attacks that took nearly 3,000 lives.<\/p>\n

The same month that Congress approved the use of force resolution against Iraq, 66% of the public said that \u201cSaddam Hussein helped the terrorists in the September 11th attacks\u201d; just 21% said he was not involved in 9\/11.\u00a0In February 2003<\/a>, a month before the war began, that belief was only somewhat less widespread; 57% thought Hussein had supported the 9\/11 terrorists.<\/p>\n

It is not entirely clear why so many Americans \u2013 including majorities in both parties \u2013 embraced this falsehood. But by connecting Hussein to terrorism and the group that attacked the United States, administration officials blurred the lines between Iraq and 9\/11. \u201cThe notion was reinforced by these hints, the discussions that they had about possible links\u201d with al-Qaida terrorists, the late Andrew Kohut, founding director of Pew Research Center, told\u00a0The Washington Post<\/a>\u00a0after the war was underway in 2003.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Thousands of protesters rallied for peace in New York City on Feb. 15, 2003. (Don Emmert\/AFP\/Getty Images)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

As prospects for war grew, thousands took to the streets to protest<\/h3>\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n

In the months leading up to the war, majorities of between 55% and 68% said they favored taking military action to end Hussein\u2019s rule in Iraq. No more than about a third opposed military action.<\/p>\n

However, support for military action in Iraq was consistently less pronounced among a handful of demographic and partisan groups.<\/p>\n

The Center\u2019s final survey before the U.S. invasion,\u00a0conducted in mid-February 2003<\/a>, highlighted these differences: Women were about 10 percentage points less likely than men to support the use of military force against Iraq (61% vs. 71%).<\/p>\n

A sizable majority of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents (83%) favored the use of military force to end Hussein\u2019s rule. Democrats and Democratic leaners were less supportive; still, more Democrats favored (52%) than opposed (40%) military action.<\/p>\n

Yet Democrats were divided in opinions about whether to go to war in Iraq, with liberal Democrats less likely than conservative and moderate Democrats to favor using military force.<\/p>\n

To build greater backing for the use of force among U.S. allies \u2013 and assuage lingering public concerns about war \u2013 the administration dispatched one of its most popular figures, Secretary of State Colin Powell, to the UN Security Council.\u00a0In a pivotal moment in the Iraq debate<\/a>, Powell presented what he described as \u201cfacts and conclusions, based on solid intelligence\u201d to show that Iraq had failed to comply with UN weapons resolutions. \u201cLeaving Saddam Hussein in possession of weapons of mass destruction for a few more months or years is not an option, not in a post-Sept. 11 world,\u201d Powell said.<\/p>\n

Powell\u2019s address had a significant impact on U.S. public opinion, even among those who were opposed to war.\u00a0Roughly six-in-ten adults (61%)<\/a>\u00a0said Powell had explained clearly why the United States might use military force to end Hussein\u2019s rule; that was greater than the share saying Bush had clearly explained the stakes in Iraq (52%). Powell was particularly persuasive among those who were opposed to using force in Iraq: 39% said he had clearly explained why the U.S. may need to take military action, about twice the share saying the same about Bush.<\/p>\n

In a last-ditch effort to prevent war, millions of protestors took to the streets in numerous cities across the world and in the U.S. on Feb. 15. While the largest demonstrations were in\u00a0London and Rome<\/a>, several hundred thousand antiwar protesters crowded the streets of New York City, with some carrying signs saying \u201cNo Blood for Oil.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"
Secretary of State Colin Powell presented to the\u00a0UN Security Council\u00a0what he said was evidence of Iraq\u2019s chemical and biological warfare capabilities on Feb. 5, 2003. (Timothy A. Clary\/AFP via Getty Images)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Americans initially rallied behind the war; then support plummeted<\/h3>\n

After the war began, administration officials were confident that the United States would quickly prevail. For a time, it appeared they would be right: U.S. and allied forces easily overwhelmed the Iraqi army.<\/p>\n

By April 9, U.S. forces and Iraqi civilians brought down a statue of Saddam Hussein in a Baghdad square. And on May 1, Bush stood on the deck of the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln \u2013 in front of a banner proclaiming \u201cMission Accomplished\u201d \u2013 and declared that major combat operations had ended.<\/p>\n

\"\"
U.S. Marines pull down the statue of Saddam Hussein in the center of Baghdad on April 9, 2003. (Mirrorpix\/Getty Images)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Yet the war continued for another eight years. Public support for the use of U.S. military force in Iraq, which rose to 74% during the month that Bush gave what became known as his \u201cMission Accomplished\u201d speech, never again reached that level.<\/p>\n

As U.S. forces faced a mounting Iraqi insurgency, a growing share of Americans \u2013 especially Democrats \u2013 expressed doubts about the war. The share of Americans saying the U.S. military effort in Iraq was going well, which surpassed 90% in the war\u2019s early weeks, fell to about 60% in late summer 2003.<\/p>\n

\"As<\/figure>\n

There had been partisan differences in attitudes related to Iraq since Bush began raising the prospect of war in 2002. But as the war continued, these differences intensified:\u00a0In October 2003<\/a>, a 56% majority of Democrats said that U.S. forces should be brought home from Iraq as soon as possible, a 12-point increase from just a month earlier. By contrast, fewer than half of independents (40%) and just 20% of Republicans favored withdrawing U.S. troops.<\/p>\n

Support for U.S. military action declined further the next year as two incidents brought the horrors of war home to Americans. In March 2004,\u00a0four American private security contractors<\/a>\u00a0were killed and their bodies desecrated in a spate of anti-American violence. Then, the first pictures emerged of abuse of prisoners by U.S. troops at\u00a0Abu Ghraib<\/a>, an Iraqi prison.\u00a0In a survey that May<\/a>, the share of Americans who said the use of military force was going at least \u201cfairly well\u201d fell below 50% for the first time.<\/p>\n

\"\"
U.S. Marines patrol the streets of Fallujah, Iraq, in December 2004.\u00a0(Tauseef Mustafa\/AFP via Getty Images)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Bush\u2019s reelection as president in November underscored the extent to which the war in Iraq had divided the nation. Among the narrow majority of voters (51%) who then approved of the decision to go to war, 85% voted for Bush; among the smaller share (45%) who disapproved, 87% voted for his Democratic opponent, John Kerry, according to national\u00a0exit polls<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Public support for the war declined further during Bush\u2019s second term. By January 2007, with the situation on the ground deteriorating, Bush defied growing calls from Democrats to withdraw U.S. forces from Iraq and instead announced that he was sending\u00a0more\u00a0<\/em>troops to the country. What Bush called\u00a0\u201ca new way forward<\/a>\u201d in Iraq \u2013 which became more widely known as the troop surge, or surge \u2013 was a risky gambit to alter the trajectory of the war.<\/p>\n

The new strategy, in which more than 20,000 additional U.S. forces were deployed to Iraq, was broadly unpopular with a public that had grown weary of war.\u00a0By roughly two-to-one (61% to 31%)<\/a>, Americans opposed Bush\u2019s plan to send additional forces to Iraq. Bush\u2019s new strategy \u201ctriggered increased partisan polarization on the debate over what to do in Iraq,\u201d the Center noted in its report on the January 2007 survey.<\/p>\n

Still, while the overall impact of the surge on Iraq was intensely debated, it was widely credited with helping to reduce the level of violence in the country,\u00a0both among U.S. troops and Iraqi civilians<\/a>. While Americans acknowledged the improvement in the situation in Iraq, they remained deeply skeptical of the decision to go to war.<\/p>\n

In November 2007<\/a>, nearly half of Americans (48%) said the war was going very or fairly well, an 18 percentage point increase from February of that year. Yet support for withdrawing U.S. forces from Iraq was undiminished; by 54% to 41%, more Americans favored bringing troops home from Iraq as soon as possible rather than keeping troops there until the situation had stabilized.\u00a0Those attitudes were virtually unchanged from earlier in 2007.<\/p>\n

With the 2008 presidential campaign approaching \u2013 and roughly 100,000 U.S. troops still in Iraq \u2013 it seemed likely that the war would again be a major issue.\u00a0During the Democratic primaries<\/a>, Barack Obama repeatedly contrasted his\u00a0early opposition to the war<\/a>\u00a0with Hillary Clinton\u2019s 2002 Senate vote in support of the war authorization.<\/p>\n

However, after Obama defeated Clinton for the Democratic nomination and faced John McCain in the general election, the Iraq War was increasingly overshadowed by turmoil in financial markets, which triggered a worldwide economic crisis.\u00a0In national exit polls<\/a>\u00a0conducted after Obama\u2019s victory over McCain, 63% of voters cited the economy as the most important issue facing the country; just 10% mentioned the war in Iraq.<\/p>\n

During the 2008 campaign<\/a>, Obama vowed to end the war in Iraq, adding that the United States \u201cwould be as careful getting out of Iraq as we were careless getting in.\u201d Three years later, the U.S. withdrew all but a handful of its troops;\u00a0in a ceremony on Dec. 15, 2011<\/a>, the United States lowered the flag of command that had flown over Baghdad. President Obama\u2019s decision drew overwhelming public support.\u00a0A month before the ceremony<\/a>, 75% of Americans \u2013 including nearly half of Republicans \u2013 approved of his decision to withdraw all combat troops from Iraq.<\/p>\n

\"\"
A flag-raising ceremony\u00a0in Baghdad on Dec. 15, 2011, marked the end of U.S. military operations in Iraq. (Pablo Martinez Monsivais\u2013Pool\/Getty Images)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Yet Obama soon discovered how difficult it would be for the U.S. to fully disengage from Iraq. In 2014, a new security threat emerged in Iraq \u2013 the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, or ISIS. With ISIS taking over territory in Iraq and committing high-profile terrorist acts, the group quickly became one of the\u00a0U.S. public\u2019s top security threat<\/a>s<\/a>. In response, Obama reluctantly authorized\u00a0U.S. airstrikes<\/a>\u00a0and dispatched a small number of U.S. forces back to Iraq. Five years later, his successor, then-President Donald Trump, claimed that the group was on the verge of defeat in\u00a0Iraq and Syria<\/a>, although some U.S. security officials say it\u00a0remains a threat<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Judgments on the Iraq War and its impact on Bush\u2019s legacy<\/h3>\n

The Iraq War has a long and complicated legacy. After the war officially ended, it remained an issue, to varying degrees, in both the\u00a02012<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a02016<\/a>\u00a0presidential election campaigns.\u00a0Even in the 2020 campaign<\/a>, nearly a decade after the war\u2019s end, Trump and Joe Biden each portrayed themselves as better able to extricate the nation from what have been called \u201cendless wars\u201d \u2013 the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.<\/p>\n

By that point, most Americans had largely moved on from the war. Shortly before the United States withdrew its forces in 2011,\u00a0a majority of Americans (56%)<\/a>\u00a0had concluded that, despite the war\u2019s enormous costs, the U.S. had \u201cmostly succeeded\u201d in achieving its goals in Iraq.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n

But over the next few years, that belief faded. By\u00a02018<\/a>, the 15th anniversary of the start of the war, just 39% of Americans said the U.S. had succeeded in Iraq, while 53% said it had failed to achieve its goals.<\/p>\n

Even among Republicans, who had consistently favored the use of U.S. military force throughout the war and before it began, there were divisions over whether the U.S. had achieved its goals in Iraq. Only about half (48%) of Republicans and Republican leaners said the U.S. had succeeded, although that was 10 points higher than four years earlier.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n

The Iraq War will long be associated with the presidency of George W. Bush, its primary architect and one of its strongest advocates. When Bush looked back at the war in his 2010 memoir, \u201cDecision Points,\u201d he acknowledged that mistakes had been made. Among them, he said in an interview with\u00a0NBC News<\/a>, was his 2003 \u201cMission Accomplished\u201d speech. \u201cNo question it was a mistake,\u201d Bush said.<\/p>\n

As far as the failure to find WMD in Iraq, \u201cno one was more shocked and angry than I was when we didn\u2019t find the weapons,\u201d Bush said. Still, he was insistent that going to war in Iraq and removing Hussein from power was the right thing to do.<\/p>\n

The war\u2019s impact on Americans\u2019 views of Bush\u2019s presidency was underscored\u00a0in a December 2008 survey<\/a>, conducted shortly before he left office. Asked what Bush would be most remembered for, roughly half (51%) cited wars, with 29% specifically mentioning the war in Iraq. No other issue, not even Bush\u2019s leadership following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, was mentioned as frequently.<\/p>\n

Lead image, from left: President George W. Bush declares that \u201cmajor combat operations in Iraq have ended\u201d\u00a0on May 1, 2003. Soldiers in Kuwait near the Iraqi border.\u00a0Baghdad burns at the start of \u201cOperation Iraqi Freedom.\u201d\u00a0Students in Los Angeles protest the coming war.\u00a0Wooden crosses for lost U.S. troops at a roadside memorial in Lafayette, California, in 2007. (Stephen Jaffe\/AFP;\u00a0Ian Waldie; Mirrorpix;\u00a0Robert Gauthier\/Los Angeles Times;\u00a0Justin Sullivan, all via Getty Images)<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n

https:\/\/www.pewresearch.org\/politics\/2023\/03\/14\/a-look-back-at-how-fear-and-false-beliefs-bolstered-u-s-public-support-for-war-in-iraq\/<\/div>\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Twenty years ago this month, the United States launched a major military invasion of Iraq, marking the second time it fought a war in that country in a little more than a decade. It was the start of an eight-year conflict that resulted in the deaths of more than 4,000 U.S. servicemembers and hundreds of …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2976","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sawtoroba.com\/Eng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2976","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sawtoroba.com\/Eng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sawtoroba.com\/Eng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sawtoroba.com\/Eng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sawtoroba.com\/Eng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2976"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sawtoroba.com\/Eng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2976\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sawtoroba.com\/Eng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2976"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sawtoroba.com\/Eng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2976"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sawtoroba.com\/Eng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2976"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}