Military shares public's declining support for Bush, war

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Military shares public's declining support for Bush, war

By TIM WHITMIRE, Associated Press Writer

CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- More than half of North Carolina military members surveyed in the latest Elon University poll disapprove of President Bush's handling of the war in Iraq and his overall job performance.

Nearly 53 percent of military members said they strongly disapproved or disapproved of Bush's handling of his job. And just more than 56 percent of that same group strongly disapproved or disapproved of how he has dealt with the Iraq war.

Overall, 53 percent of those surveyed for the poll released Friday did not approve of Bush's job performance, while 57 percent did not approve of his handling of the Iraq war.

"We see that those most involved in the Iraq situation, the military, are not so different from the general public after all and share the same concerns about Iraq," said Hunter Bacot, the poll's director. "Conventional wisdom might suggest that the military would be more supportive of Bush in Iraq, but that simply isn't the case if you look at the numbers."

North Carolina has one of the nation's largest military presences, with major Army, Marine and Air Force installations based in eastern North Carolina. North Carolina-based active-duty and reserve units have seen extensive action since the United States attacked Afghanistan following the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.

Of the 539 adults surveyed for the Elon poll, 80 - or 14.8 percent of the sample - were active-duty, reserve, retired or veteran members of the military. The telephone poll was conducted between Monday and Thursday and has a margin of error for the entire sample of plus or minus 4.3 percentage points.

The margin of error, which reflects the confidence that the results speak for an entire group, is higher for smaller groups, such as the 80 military members.

Just over half of those people surveyed said the United States should no longer be in Iraq, while nearly 43 percent agreed that the country should remain there. The rest said they did not know or refused to answer.

Roughly half of those polled - 52 percent - said they do not know if the war in Iraq was worth fighting. The poll showed about 15 percent believe the war was worthwhile and 29.1 percent do not think so.

Military members were somewhat more supportive of the United States' presence in Iraq than the general population, with exactly half saying the nation should be there and 41.3 percent saying it should not.

More than half of military members - 51 percent - said they did not know if the war was worth fighting, while 19 percent said the war was worth it and 29 percent said it was not

The low approval numbers for Bush seen in the poll continue a pattern of declining support for the second-term president seen in previous Elon polls and nationally.

The percentage of those surveyed who say they strongly approve or approve of Bush's job performance was down to 41 percent in the current poll from a recent peak of 55 percent in February 2004.

Approval of Bush's handling of the Iraq war has dropped from 52 percent in September 2003 to nearly 39 percent now.

Approval of the president's handling of the economy ticked up slightly in the current poll, to 37 percent, from the 36 percent approval registered in April. The peak was 42 percent in September 2004.

Elon's Institute for Politics and Public Affairs has been conducting its poll since 2000.