The good news about the most recent Newsweek poll was Bush’s approval rating dropping below 50%. The bad news was data showing continued wide-spread ignorance about Iraq, Saddam Hussein, and the war.
When poll respondents were asked if Iraq had chemical or biological weapons before the March invasion, 55% said yes, only 32% said no. Granted, this is the best the public has done on the question since Newsweek started asking it last May, but still. More than half the public still believes Iraq had WMD? I know the White House had an effective propaganda machine before we launched our invasion, but I like to think the public keeps up with current events a little better. The WMD story has dominated the news for months.
It gets worse. Newsweek’s poll also asked if people believe whether “Saddam Hussein’s regime in Iraq was DIRECTLY involved in planning, financing, or carrying out the terrorist attacks of September 11th.” Here’s a myth that’s been pretty thoroughly discredited, right? People couldn’t still believe this, right? Wrong.
A whopping 49% — a plurality — said they still believe Hussein was directly involved with 9/11. 39% said Hussein was not involved while 16% said they didn’t know.
But the really scary part is that the public hasn’t gotten better on this over time. When Newsweek asked the exact same question in a national poll five months ago, 47% said they believed Hussein was directly involved with 9/11. This means, of course, that over the last five months, even as White House officials including Bush and Powell have gone out of their way to distance themselves from this unsubstantiated claim, the percentage of Americans who believe this debunked myth has actually gotten slightly worse.