DOI: 10.3886/icpsr03746.v2
title: CBS News/New York Times Monthly Poll #2, February 2003
title: Version 2

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, the situation with Iraq, and the situation with North Korea, as well as their views of the United Nations and its handling of the situation with Iraq. Those queried were asked which of the following issues should receive the most Congressional attention in the coming year: fighting the war on terror, improving the economy, dealing with Iraq, or dealing with North Korea. Respondents' familiarity with and understanding of possible United States military action against Iraq was assessed. They were asked whether the Bush administration and/or Secretary of State Colin Powell had presented adequate evidence that military action against Iraq was necessary, that Iraq possesses weapons of mass destruction, and that Iraq was connected with the terrorist group Al Qaeda. Respondents were asked whether the removal of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, the protection of a global source of oil, and/or the prevention of Iraqi development of weapons of mass destruction were appropriate uses of military action, whether United Nations weapons inspectors should be given additional time, whether diplomatic options had been exhausted, whether Iraq posed an immediate danger to United States interests, and whether any of these reasons would justify the potential loss of American and Iraqi lives. In the event of war, respondents were asked to predict how long the war would last, how many American soldiers would be killed, whether the war would be fought in the air or through heavy ground combat, how the war would affect the United States economy, whether the threat of terrorism against the United States would increase, and whether the United States should help pay the cost of rebuilding Iraq after the war. In addition, respondents were asked whether Iraq, North Korea, or Al Qaeda posed the greatest threat to world peace and stability. A series of question focused on North Korea's announcement that it had been developing nuclear weapons. Questions focused on whether the Bush administration had a clear plan to deal with North Korea, whether the situation required military action, could be contained with inspections, or did not pose a threat to the United States, whether the respondent expected and/or approved of military action against North Korea. Those polled were asked to assess the war on terror, including the clarity of the Bush administration's plan, the likelihood of a terrorist attack against the United States in the next few months, who was winning the war, whether government-issued warnings were useful, and whether those warnings made the respondent feel more secure or more anxious. Respondents were asked to consider how the possibility of war with Iraq had affected their travel plans, specifically whether it had made them more or less likely to fly, whether they had cancelled any trips out of concern, the method of transportation to be used during upcoming travel, whether they would consider overseas travel in the next six months, and where they would like to go on such a trip. Their views were sought on whether news coverage had been biased in favor of the war and whether the media had been too easy on the Bush administration. Other questions addressed the value of the manned space program in the United States and whether funding for the program should be increased or decreased. Additional items covered the state of the United States economy, whether Hussein was personally involved in the 2001 terrorist attack against the World Trade Center, and whether Americans who opposed a war with Iraq should be permitted to hold protest marches. Backgroundinformation on respondents includes age, gender, voter registration and participation history, political party, political orientation, marital status, religion, education, Hispanic descent, race, children in household, military service, whether respondents had traveled abroad, and household income.
description: ICPSR data undergo a confidentiality review and are altered when necessary to limit the risk of disclosure. ICPSR also routinely creates ready-to-go data files along with setups in the major statistical software formats as well as standard codebooks to accompany the data. In addition to these procedures, ICPSR performed the following processing steps for this data collection: Created variable labels and/or value labels..
description: Datasets: 
 
 DS1: Dataset
description: CBS News/New York Times Poll Series
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.
description: Adult population of the United States aged 18 and over having a telephone at home.
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).