(CBS) Americans believe the war in Iraq is going badly and getting worse, and think it's time for the U.S. either to change its strategy or start getting out, according to a CBS News poll.
Forty-three percent say the U.S. should keep fighting, but with new tactics, while 50 percent say the U.S. should begin to end its involvement altogether. Only 4 percent say the U.S. should keep fighting as it is doing now.
Just 21 percent approve of President Bush's handling of the war, the lowest number he's ever received, and an 8-point drop from just a month ago. Most of that drop has been among Republicans and conservatives. Three-quarters of Americans disapprove of how the president is handling Iraq.
Opposition to the war is now taking on historic proportions, with 62 percent saying it was "a mistake" to send U.S. troops to Iraq — slightly more than told a Gallup Poll in 1973 that it was a mistake to send U.S. forces to Vietnam.
Americans generally agree with the assessment of the Iraq Study Group, which called the situation in Iraq "grave and deteriorating." But fewer than half — 46 percent — think Mr. Bush will seriously consider the bipartisan panel's recommendations; 43 percent think he will not.
Seventy-one percent say the war is going badly, including 39 percent who believe the war is going very badly. Just 25 percent say it's going well. The negative assessment of the war was shared by a majority of Republicans, Democrats and Independents.
Half of all Americans believe the situation in Iraq is getting worse, while fewer than one in 10 think it's getting better.
Only 15 percent of Americans — the lowest number ever — say the U.S. is currently winning the war. And for the first time, a majority (53 percent) believes it's not likely that the U.S. will ultimately succeed.
Sixty percent think that Iraq will never become a stable democracy — the highest number ever — while 85 percent now characterize the situation there as a civil war.
Fifty-seven percent say Mr. Bush needs to make major changes in his Iraq policy, while 29 percent think only minor changes should be made. Just 8 percent think no changes in U.S. policy are needed.
By a 2-1 margin, Americans now say they have more confidence in congressional Democrats to handle the war than in the president.
Nearly six in 10 Americans want to see some kind of a drawdown in U.S. troop levels, including 25 percent who want all U.S. forces removed from Iraq.
Only 39 percent of Americans now say taking military action against Iraq was the right thing to do, tying the lowest number ever, while 55 percent say the U.S. should have stayed out. The country was evenly divided on this question as recently as a year ago.
A PDF file showing the results of the poll can be seen here.
Now there are some interesting little details regarding this poll. CBS News asked the question What should U.S. do in Iraq now? It is this question, the gave this split response of "Forty-three percent say the U.S. should keep fighting, but with new tactics, while 50 percent say the U.S. should begin to end its involvement altogether." While there is a clear majority of Americans wanting to get out of Iraq, the majority is only seven percentage points. In a sense, the American public is stuck trying to figure out how to resolve Iraq. One interesting aspect is how the American public has latched on to the Iraq Study Group as a resolution--with 48 percent of the American public agreeing with the recommendations in the ISG report, 19 percent disagreeing, and a high 26 percent who do not know. This statistic is pretty much in line with the December 9th Newsweek poll. There is one number that really surprises me, and that is the 85 percent of Americans who "now characterize the situation there as a civil war." So not only does the American public disapprove of President Bush's handling of Iraq, are willing to embrace the ISG recommendations, but a majority now believes that Iraq is in a civil war. None of this is good news for a Bush White House more intent on spinning the Iraq news, rather than trying to find a resolution to Iraq. Already, President Bush has postponed his major Iraq speech until after 2007:
WASHINGTON, Dec. 12 — The White House said Tuesday that President Bush would delay presenting any new strategy for Iraq until early next year, as officials suggested that Mr. Bush’s advisers were locked in internal debates on several fronts about how to proceed.
The absence of an immediate new American plan for Iraq is adding to anxiety among Iraq’s moderate neighbors, who identify with the country’s minority Sunni Arab population, and has opened the way for new proposals from many quarters, in Iraq as well as in Washington, about the next steps. But several administration officials said Mr. Bush had concluded that the decisions about troops, political pressure and diplomacy were too complicated to rush in order to lay out a plan to the nation before Christmas.
[....]
A senior administration official said Mr. Bush had decided over the last two days to prolong the deliberations based on a concern that a pre-Christmas announcement might quickly be overtaken by events. That happened to Mr. Bush in late 2005 after he used a series of speeches to unveil a “Plan for Victory” for victory in Iraq.
“The president knows he’s got only one shot at this speech,” said a senior administration official involved in the debate. “He didn’t want to make half-way announcements.”
Tony Snow, the White House press secretary, said the administration was continuing to “whittle away at options” and seeking more information from advisers, but already had a clear idea of the general outlines of his new approach. Mr. Bush also wanted to allow more time for Robert M. Gates, the incoming defense secretary, to weigh the military options he will ultimately have to carry out, the spokesman said. But Mr. Snow acknowledged that the debate continued.
“Look, there is one camp — it is the camp that works for the president,” Mr. Snow said. “Now, people are going to have disagreements, and there may be some areas on which there are still going to be debates, but most have kind of been ironed out. I would not rule out the fact that there may be some discussion on some points.”
The Bush marketing spin continues--only problem is that nobody seems to be listening.
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