Image Credit: White House 2003-05-01.
As Bush Prepares Speech to Nation on Iraq Strategy, Zogby International's "Trends Over Time" Tracks Americans' Opinions Since Start of War
Zogby via BBSNews 2007-01-10 -- As President Bush prepares Wednesday to outline his new strategy in Iraq, a wealth of polling by Zogby International shows the majority of Americans are dissatisfied with Bush’s performance on the Iraq War and question if the war has been worth the loss of American lives.
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President George W. Bush with Lt. Ryan Philips during a "Mission Accomplished" photo op on the USS Abraham Lincoln in 2003.
Image Credit: White House 2003-05-01. |
A December Zogby International telephone poll showed Bush’s national job approval rating sank to 30%, falling again from the 31% approval rating he dropped to in early June. The survey of 982 likely voters nationwide was conducted Dec. 5-8, 2006, and carries a margin of error of +/- 3.2 percentage points. Americans’ satisfaction with Bush’s job performance has continued to fall from the 61% he enjoyed in April 2003, shortly after the start of the war in Iraq, our polling shows. Zogby International has been tracking questions from Bush’s job performance rating to how American’s view Bush’s handling of the Iraq war since the war began in 2003.
Bush’s performance on the Iraq War shows similar low levels of satisfaction – a majority of American’s polled in December (74%) give Bush negative marks – the greatest level of dissatisfaction our polling has found since we began tracking Bush’s performance on the war in 2003. Overall, the majority (54%) say Bush has performed poorly on the war and 20% say he has had fair performance – only 19% grade his performance as good and 5% as excellent. Even those who identify themselves as Born Again or Evangelical Christians, a group once viewed as ardent Bush supporters, have a negative view of Bush’s handling of the Iraq War – 46% say he has handled the war poorly while 17% give him only a fair grade. The same poll also shows only one in three (34%) Americans say the war in Iraq has been worth the loss of American lives – among the lowest percentage recorded in a long series of Zogby polls on the question. In November 2003, 44% of Americans polled said the war in Iraq was worth the loss of American lives.
Pollster John Zogby: “[Bush’s] legacy will be almost entirely about the war in Iraq, which makes the speech tomorrow even more important than any other speech, because it is fair to say the war is not going well. In fact, it’s going very badly -- it’s going badly in almost every respect. Certainly on the ground, Americans continue to die, Iraqis continue to die in huge numbers and there’s no sense yet that a political solution is anywhere in sight.”
In a related survey, an Arab American Institute/Zogby International poll released in December 2006 of Arabs in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Morocco, Jordan and Lebanon found a majority in every country polled -- with the exception of Lebanon (47%) -- reported their opinion of the U.S. was worse than the year before. When asked how U.S. Iraq policy shapes their overall opinion of the U.S., a majority in each of the countries said it had a negative impact. The face to face surveys polled between 600-800 adults in each country from Nov. 13-21 and contained margins of error of between +/- 3.7 percentage points and 4.7 percentage points.
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