Gallup: More Than Half of Americans Feel Bush Deliberately Misled Country on Iraq WMD By E&P Staff Published: February 03, 2006 1:40 PM ET A new Gallup Poll, conducted in late January, reveals that just 39% of Americans approve of the way President Bush is handling Iraq, with 58% disapproving. Over half (53%) now say the administration "deliberately misled the American public about whether Iraq has weapons of mass destruction," with 46% disagreeing. Gallup notes that this finding is "essentially reversed" from one year ago. Further, some 51% say the U.S. "made a mistake in sending troops to Iraq." Yet, despite this, only 17% expect a significant reduction of U.S. troops in Iraq in the next year. The partisan divide on all these questions is enormous, but with Independents now aligning much more with Democrats. For example, 84% of Republicans feel the president did not mislead the country on WMD, the exact percentage of Democrats who feel the opposite. One interesting new question asked if respondents would feel the war in Iraq was a "success" if the new government there is composed "mainly of Muslim religious leaders." Almost half said that it could still be called a "success." The latest poll was taken Jan. 20-22, based on interviews with 1,006 adults.
Oh no, it was deliberate. He was hellbent on going in, even though weapons inspectors kept telling him they hadn't found any sign yet, and they only needed a little more time. No, King Bush wanted to score one for dad, and his neocunt buddies wanted to capitalize on 9/11 as an excuse to secure a strategic position amongst "our" oil.
Bush had decided to go to war way before he decided to try and build a case for it.... Posted by David Corn at 03:21 PM February 02, 2006 The Mother of All Downing Street Memos? Channel 4 News in England is reporting on the existence of a January 31, 2003 memo that recorded a discussion between Bush and Blair, during which Bush raised the idea of orchestrating an incident in which Saddam would fire on UN reconnaissance planes and, thus, give Bush and Blair cause to attack Iraq. Channel 4 has posted the below extracts of the memo: President Bush to Tony Blair: "The US was thinking of flying U2 reconnaissance aircraft with fighter cover over Iraq, painted in UN colours. If Saddam fired on them, he would be in breach" Bush: "It was also possible that a defector could be brought out who would give a public presentation about Saddam's WMD, and there was also a small possibility that Saddam would be assassinated." Blair: "A second Security Council Resolution resolution would provide an insurance policy against the unexpected and international cover, including with the Arabs." Bush: "The US would put its full weight behind efforts to get another resolution and would 'twist arms' and 'even threaten'. But he had to say that if ultimately we failed, military action would follow anyway.'' Blair responds that he is: "solidly with the President and ready to do whatever it took to disarm Saddam." Bush told Blair he: "thought it unlikely that there would be internecine warfare between the different religious and ethnic groups." To my thinking, this is a rather big deal. The president of the United States caught conspiring to create a modern-day version of the sinking of the Maine? How's that for an impeachable offense? I'm presuming the memo is legit. It was first obtained by British human rights lawyer Philippe Sands for a new version of his book, Lawless World. Sands is a friend of friends of mine. He is a trustworthy fellow, and I know that last year he did succeed in prying sensitive documents out of the British government concerning the legality--or illegality--of the invasion of Iraq. His sources were obviously British officials upset with the war. So my informed hunch is that this document is real. If so, how will the White House respond? Will members of the press corps at 1600 Pennsylvania press the point? This revelation--which is more shocking than anything in the Downing Street Memos--should be major news here. But will it?
Well, since Sands is a human rights lawyer, has written a book, and is a friend of friends of the writer, and is said to be a "trustworthy fellow," by golly, this must be true.
Just over 1000 adults sampled. How was it sampled? Poll conclusions are worthless without including the methodology.