Depressing Numbers in Iraq Opinion Poll

According to Harris Interactive, their latest poll of public attitudes on the situation in Iraq makes for depressing reading as “most of the numbers are worse than they have ever been in the course of more than three years.” The depressing numbers include: 58 percent of Americans now believe that the situation in Iraq is getting worse while only nine percent think that it is getting better, and 46 percent of Americans believe that “taking military action against Iraq” was the wrong thing to do while 36 percent think that it was the right thing to do. For further discouragement, 63 percent (to 17 percent) of Americans are “not confident” that U.S. policy in Iraq will be successful.

The poll found that Americans were more confident about the troops than the policies pursued in Iraq – 83 percent of those polled thought that the American troops were doing a good job. These positive feelings about soldiers, however, did not extend to Iraqi forces, which had a 78 percent negative rating compared to a 12 percent positive rating.