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Public Attitudes Shifting About War in Iraq
ROCHESTER, N.Y. -- For the past few months, the American public's attitudes to a number of key issues on Iraq have remained remarkably stable. Most U.S. adults, it seemed, had made up their minds and neither the recent news from Iraq nor the campaign rhetoric has had much impact on their opinion. However, that has changed in the past month, according to Harris Interactive. Given the emphasis that has been placed on the situation in Iraq during the presidential election campaign of recent weeks, on balance it would seem that more of the public is leaning toward a stance that favors President Bush.By a slight 52% to 45% majority, the public now feels that the invasion of Iraq strengthened, not weakened, the war on terrorism. This is in contrast to the narrow 43% to 41% who felt this way in September. In addition, 47% of adults now favor keeping a large number of troops in Iraq until there is a stable government there. This is the highest level of support Harris Interactive has measured on this key issue and is up sharply since September when 38% felt this way.The telephone poll was taken from Oct. 14 to Oct. 17.Overall, the latest results find that support for the war is increasing:By 50% to 47 %, U.S. adults now favor bringing most of the troops home in the next year. This three-point margin is a big change since September when, by 16 points (54% to 38%), the public more clearly wanted the troops brought home.While a small majority (52% to 47%) feels that the invasion of Iraq has not helped protect the United States from another terrorist attack, these results are closer than what has been seen in the past. Recently, in September, a wider 51% to 42 % held this same position.A 59% to 39 % majority believes that "what we were told by the government before the war about weapons of mass destruction and links to Al Qaeda" was "misleading," up from September, when a 55% to 36% majority felt this way.But by 53% to 46%, a majority (albeit not large) believe that the U.S. government tried to present the information about weapons of mass destruction "accurately" and did not try to "deliberately exaggerate" the reports. This is a shift from the narrow 46 to 45 % who agreed with this point of view in September."