{"id":53904,"date":"2003-04-02T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2003-04-02T05:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/2003\/04\/02\/polls-in-close-agreement-on-public-views-of-war\/"},"modified":"2024-04-14T03:49:35","modified_gmt":"2024-04-14T08:49:35","slug":"polls-in-close-agreement-on-public-views-of-war","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/politics\/2003\/04\/02\/polls-in-close-agreement-on-public-views-of-war\/","title":{"rendered":"Polls in Close Agreement on Public Views of War"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Public attitudes toward the war in Iraq have been remarkably consistent through the first two weeks of the conflict. There is broad support for the war, and Americans are upbeat &#8211; though not overwhelmingly so &#8211; about progress to date. Most expect it will take months, not weeks, to defeat the Iraqi military. What is striking is the similarity of the results, regardless of question wording.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Nearly all major national survey organizations have shown support for military action in the 70% range. Only the Newsweek poll, conducted March 27-28, found a lower level of support (63%). But that is largely because the Newsweek question focused on the timing of the war, and asked respondents whether the U.S. should have &#8220;waited longer to try to achieve its goals in Iraq diplomatically.&#8221; Significantly, the two surveys that explicitly mentioned removing Saddam Hussein from power as a goal of military action found higher levels of support than did other polls (CBS News\/New York Times, Fox News\/Opinion Dynamics).<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Perceptions of how well the war is going also are consistent across polling organizations. Those surveys that have tracked attitudes on a daily basis have found a decline in highly favorable assessments of the war&#8217;s progress. The decline is sharpest in the Pew Research Center survey, which was the only one to measure perceptions of progress shortly after the war began (March 20-22).<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Most Americans expect the war to last several months. National surveys gave respondents a range of possible durations &#8211; from days to a year or longer &#8211; and got similar results. Majorities in four separate polls said the war would last several months.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">There is widespread concern over U.S. casualties. In the March 27 survey by ABC News\/Washington Post, more than eight-in-ten (82%) expect a &#8220;significant&#8221; number of military casualties &#8211; up from just 37% a week earlier. Given a range of possible estimates, a 52% majority in the Gallup\/CNN\/USA Today survey said they expected several hundred casualties but fewer than 1,000.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The public has not been surprised by the fierce fight mounted by Iraqi forces. Most people say the resistance has been about what they expected. But 55% in the Time\/CNN poll felt the government was too optimistic in its public statements about the war and the same number in the CBS News\/New York Times survey felt the government &#8220;underestimated&#8221; the Iraqi army.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">What follows is a compendium of recent national surveys on the war:<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\" style=\"text-align: center;\">\n<figure><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/assets.pewresearch.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/legacy-commentary\/64-1.gif\" alt=\"\" width=\"625\"><\/figure>\n<figure><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/assets.pewresearch.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/legacy-commentary\/64-2.gif\" alt=\"\" width=\"625\"><\/figure>\n<figure><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/assets.pewresearch.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/legacy-commentary\/64-3.gif\" alt=\"\" width=\"625\"><\/figure>\n<figure><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/assets.pewresearch.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/legacy-commentary\/64-4.gif\" alt=\"\" width=\"617\" height=\"479\"><\/figure>\n<figure><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/assets.pewresearch.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/legacy-commentary\/64-5.gif\" alt=\"\" width=\"605\" height=\"628\"><\/figure><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Public attitudes toward the war in Iraq have been remarkably consistent through the first two weeks of the conflict. There is broad support for the war, and Americans are upbeat &#8211; though not overwhelmingly so &#8211; about progress to date. Most expect it will take months, not weeks, to defeat the Iraqi military. What is [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sub_headline":"","sub_title":"","_crdt_document":"","_prc_public_revisions":[],"_ppp_expiration_hours":0,"_ppp_enabled":false,"ai_generated_summary":"","relatedPosts":[],"reportMaterials":[],"multiSectionReport":[],"package_parts__enabled":false,"package_parts":[],"_prc_fork_parent":0,"_prc_fork_status":"","_prc_active_fork":0,"datacite_doi":"","datacite_doi_citation":"","_prc_seo_qr_attachment_id":0,"spoken_article_player_enabled":true,"bylines":[],"acknowledgements":[],"displayBylines":true,"footnotes":"","prc_watchers":[]},"categories":[332,98],"tags":[],"bylines":[],"collection":[],"datasets":[],"level_of_effort":[],"primary_audience":[],"information_type":[],"_post_visibility":[],"formats":[458],"_fund_pool":[],"languages":[],"regions-countries":[],"research-teams":[520],"workflow-status":[],"class_list":["post-53904","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-media-industry","category-war-international-conflict-1","formats-report","research-teams-politics"],"label":false,"post_parent":0,"word_count":400,"canonical_url":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/politics\/2003\/04\/02\/polls-in-close-agreement-on-public-views-of-war\/","art_direction":false,"_embeds":[],"watchers":[],"table_of_contents":[],"report_materials":"","report_pagination":{"current_post":null,"next_post":null,"previous_post":null,"pagination_items":[]},"parent_info":{"parent_title":"Polls in Close Agreement on Public Views of War","parent_id":53904},"materialsOrdered":[],"chaptersOrdered":[],"partsOrdered":[],"partsEnabled":false,"datacite_doi":"","prc_seo_data":{"title":"Polls in Close Agreement on Public Views of War","description":"Public attitudes toward the war in Iraq have been remarkably consistent through the first two weeks of the conflict. There is broad support for the war, and Americans are upbeat&hellip;","og_title":"Polls in Close Agreement on Public Views of War","og_description":"","schema_type":"Article","noindex":false,"canonical_url":"","primary_terms":[],"custom_schema":[],"og_image":0,"indexnow_submitted_at":null,"gsc_index_status":null},"prepublish_checks":{"prc-image-alt-text":{"status":"complete","message":"No image blocks in content.","data":null},"prc-about-this-research":{"status":"incomplete","message":"Add an \"About this research\" details block.","data":null},"prc-paragraph-count":{"status":"complete","message":"Found 7 paragraphs.","data":{"count":7}},"prc-internal-link":{"status":"incomplete","message":"Add at least one internal link.","data":{"count":0}}},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"relatedPostsOrdered":[],"bylinesOrdered":[],"acknowledgementsOrdered":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53904","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53904"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53904\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":113743,"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53904\/revisions\/113743"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53904"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53904"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53904"},{"taxonomy":"bylines","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bylines?post=53904"},{"taxonomy":"collection","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/collection?post=53904"},{"taxonomy":"datasets","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/datasets?post=53904"},{"taxonomy":"level_of_effort","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/level_of_effort?post=53904"},{"taxonomy":"primary_audience","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/primary_audience?post=53904"},{"taxonomy":"information_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/information_type?post=53904"},{"taxonomy":"_post_visibility","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/_post_visibility?post=53904"},{"taxonomy":"formats","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/formats?post=53904"},{"taxonomy":"_fund_pool","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/_fund_pool?post=53904"},{"taxonomy":"languages","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/languages?post=53904"},{"taxonomy":"regions-countries","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/regions-countries?post=53904"},{"taxonomy":"research-teams","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/research-teams?post=53904"},{"taxonomy":"workflow-status","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/workflow-status?post=53904"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}