DOI: 10.3886/icpsr03784
title: ABC News/Washington Post War Poll #2, April 2003
title: Archival Version

description: This special topic poll, conducted April 9, 2003, was
 undertaken to assess public opinion on the war against Iraq.
 Respondents were asked whether they approved of the way President
 George W. Bush was handling the presidency as well as the way things
 were going in the United States. Respondents' opinions were elicited
 about whether they supported the United States going to war with Iraq,
 whether that support would change if the United States found chemical
 and/or biological weapons in Iraq, whether Iraqi President Saddam
 Hussein had to be killed/captured for the war to be considered a
 success, and whether the people of Iraq were on the side of the United
 States or Hussein. Those queried were asked to assess how the war was
 going, whether the number of United States military casualties had
 been acceptable, and whether everything had been done to avoid
 civilian casualties. Respondents were asked whether they were
 surprised at how quickly the United States military took control of
 Baghdad, and whether they considered the war with Iraq basically
 over. A series of questions addressed post-war Iraq. Topics covered
 whether the United States or the United Nations should be in charge
 until a new government was established, whether a large number of
 soldiers should remain in Iraq to maintain peace, whether the war
 would leave the United States in a stronger or weaker position in the
 world, and how the war would affect stability in the Middle
 East. Views were sought on the likelihood that the United States would
 become bogged down in a drawn-out war with Iraq, whether the war would
 cause long-term damage to United States relations with France,
 Germany, and Russia, and whether the United States would be too quick
 to use military force to resolve disputes in the future. Lastly,
 respondents were asked whether the United States had done the right
 thing by going to war with Iraq. Background information on respondents
includes gender and political party.
description: Households were selected by random-digit dialing. Within
 households, the respondent selected was the adult living in the
 household who last had a birthday and who was home at the time of the
interview.
description: Datasets: 
DS1: ABC News/Washington Post War Poll #2, April 2003
description: Persons aged 18 and over living in households with
telephones in the contiguous 48 United States.
description: (1) Additional information about sampling,
 interviewing, weighting, and sampling error may be found in the
 codebook. (2) The data are provided as an SPSS portable file. (3)
 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. (4) The codebook is provided by ICPSR as a Portable
 Document Format (PDF) file. The PDF file format was developed by Adobe
 Systems Incorporated and can be accessed using PDF reader software,
 such as the Adobe Acrobat Reader. Information on how to obtain a copy
of the Acrobat Reader is provided on the ICPSR Web site.