Poll: Even Military Disapproves of Iraq War Handling

Forget what Karl Rove or any other GOP strategist says about the 2006 midterm elections. They were a referendum on the Iraq war, and the answer was clear: people are not happy with the way Bush and the Republican Congress handled it, nor are they happy with where it's going. Public opinion is a malleable thing though, and is often fickle and given to quick changes based more on mass media memes than any actual, factual analysis of what is good or bad about a given situation. Which makes the result of this poll that much more surprising; one might expect that active members of the military would necessarily take a more positive view on how the Iraq war is progressing, since they're the ones involved in it and get to see all the positive things Laura Bush knows are happening there without having to view it through the "liberal media filter."

For the first time, more troops disapprove of the president’s handling of the war than approve of it. Barely one-third of service members approve of the way the president is handling the war.

When the military was feeling most optimistic about the war — in 2004 — 83 percent of poll respondents thought success in Iraq was likely. This year, that number has shrunk to 50 percent.

Only 35 percent of the military members polled this year said they approve of the way President Bush is handling the war, while 42 percent said they disapproved. The president’s approval rating among the military is only slightly higher than for the population as a whole. In 2004, when his popularity peaked, 63 percent of the military approved of Bush’s handling of the war. While approval of the president’s war leadership has slumped, his overall approval remains high among the military.

Just as telling, in this year’s poll only 41 percent of the military said the U.S. should have gone to war in Iraq in the first place, down from 65 percent in 2003. That closely reflects the beliefs of the general population today — 45 percent agreed in a recent USA Today/Gallup poll.

Professor David Segal, director of the Center for Research on Military Organization at the University of Maryland, was not surprised by the changing attitude within the military.

“They’re seeing more casualties and fatalities and less progress,” Segal said.

He added, “Part of what we’re seeing is a recognition that the intelligence that led to the war was wrong.”
So maybe it's just the new recruits who are the nay-sayers, since they've spent the most time recently with civilians and hearing how popular opinion has shifted against Iraq? Not so, in fact the opposite appears to be the case.

The results should not be read as representative of the military as a whole; the survey’s respondents are on average older, more experienced, more likely to be officers and more career-oriented than the overall military population.

Among the respondents, 66 percent have deployed at least once to Iraq or Afghanistan. In the overall active-duty force, according to the Department of Defense, that number is 72 percent.

The poll has come to be viewed by some as a barometer of the professional career military. It is the only independent poll done on an annual basis. The margin of error on this year’s poll is plus or minus 3 percentage points.
So the people who think the war is going badly and that Bush and the Republican congress in particular screwed things up are the ones with the most experience and are more likely to be officers and career military, to be on active duty and to have served in either Iraq or Afghanistan. If these people can't be trusted to give an honest report of how things are going on the ground, then really no one should be. The fact is that they are the most qualified people to discuss the matter, so when a large majority of them are saying that adding more troops is not only a bad idea but is not possible, and that the civilian leadership has royally screwed up the war, policymakers should listen.

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