DOI: 10.3886/icpsr03754.v3
title: CBS News Monthly Poll #1, March 2003
title: Version 3

description: This poll is part of a continuing series of monthly surveys
that solicit public opinion on the presidency and on a range of other
political and social issues. Respondents were asked to give their
opinions of President George W. Bush and his handling of the presidency,
foreign policy, the economy, and the situation with Iraq. Their
familiarity with and understanding of possible United States military
action against Iraq were assessed. Topics covered whether the Bush
administration was open to non-militaristic options, whether military
action should be taken without the support of United States' allies,
including France and Russia, and/or United Nations approval, whether
United Nations weapons inspectors should be given more time, and whether
the removal of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was an appropriate use of
military action. Those queried were asked whether they believed Iraq's
development of weapons of mass destruction to be a threat against the
United States requiring immediate military action, whether Iraq could be
contained with additional inspections, or whether Iraq posed no
significant threat. Respondents were asked whether the Bush
administration had presented enough evidence to justify the immediate
use of military action, whether the United States should take military
action with Great Britain's support, and whether war with Iraq was
likely to lead to a larger war with other countries in the Middle East.
Those polled were asked to assess the threat of terrorism, including
whether military action in Iraq would increase the threat of terrorism
against the United States, the likelihood of a terrorist attack against
the United States in the next few months, and who was winning the war
against terrorism. Background information on respondents includes age,
gender, voter registration and participation history, political party,
political orientation, marital status, religion, education, Hispanic
descent, race, and household income.
description: A variation of random-digit dialing using primary sampling
units (PSUs) was employed, consisting of blocks of 100 telephone
numbers identical through the eighth digit and stratified by
geographic region, area code, and size of place. Within households,
respondents were selected using a method developed by Leslie Kish and
modified by Charles Backstrom and Gerald Hursh (see Backstrom and
Hursh, SURVEY RESEARCH. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press,
1963).
description: Datasets: 
DS1: CBS News Monthly Poll #1, March 2003
description: Adult population of the United States aged 18 and over
having a telephone at home.
description: This collection has not been processed by ICPSR staff.
ICPSR is distributing the data and documentation for this collection in
essentially the same form in which they were received. When appropriate,
documentation has been converted to Portable Document Format (PDF), data files
have been converted to non-platform-specific formats, and variables have been
recoded to ensure respondents' anonymity.The ASCII data file may have been replaced if the previous version was formatted with multiple records per case. A frequency file, which contains the authoritative column locations, has been added to the collection.