Newsgroup: it.arti.cinema
Titolo: Three of Four Bush Supporters Still Believe in Iraqi WMD

Three of Four Bush Supporters Still Believe in Iraqi WMD,
al Qaeda Ties
By Jim Lobe
October 22, 2004, OneWorld.net
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/1022-01.htm
WASHINGTON - Three out of four self-described supporters of
President George W. Bush still believe that pre-war Iraq had
weapons of mass destruction (WMD) or active programs to
produce them and that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein provided
'substantial support' to al Qaeda, according to a new survey
released here Thursday.
Moreover, as many or more Bush supporters hold those beliefs
today than they did several months ago, before the
publication of a series of well-publicized official
government reports that debunked both notions.
Those are among the most striking findings of the survey,
which was conducted in mid-October by the University of
Maryland's Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA)
and Knowledge Networks, a California-based polling firm.
Remarkably, asked whether the U.S. should have gone to war
with Iraq if U.S. intelligence had concluded that Baghdad did
not have a WMD program and was not providing support to al
Qaeda, 58 percent of Bush supporters said no, and 61 percent
said they assumed that Bush would also not have gone to war
under those circumstances.
The survey, which polled the views of nearly 900 randomly
chosen respondents equally divided between Bush supporters
and those intending to vote for Democratic Sen. John Kerry,
found a yawning gap in the world views, particularly as
regards pre-war Iraq, between the two groups.
'It is normal during elections for supporters of presidential
candidates to have fundamental disagreements about values or
strategies,' according to an analysis produced by PIPA. 'The
current election is unique in that Bush supporters and Kerry
supporters have profoundly different perceptions of reality.
In the face of a stream of high-level assessments about pre-
war Iraq, Bush supporters cling to the refuted beliefs that
Iraq had WMD or supported al Qaeda.'
Indeed, the only issue on which the survey found broad
agreement between the two sets of voters was on the question
of whether the Bush administration itself has been actively
propagating the misconceptions about Iraq's WMD and
connections to al Qaeda.
'One of the reasons that Bush supporters have these
(erroneous) beliefs is that they perceive the Bush
administration confirming them,' noted Steven Kull, PIPA's
director. 'Interestingly, this is one point on which Bush and
Kerry supporters agree.'
The survey also found a major gap between Bush's stated
positions on a number of international issues and what his
supporters believe Bush's position to be. A strong majority
of Bush supporters believe, for example that the president
supports a range of international treaties and institutions
which is actually on record as opposing.
On pre-war Iraq, the survey asked each respondent questions
about WMD and links to al Qaeda on three levels: 1) what the
respondents themselves believed about the two issues; (2)
what they believed that 'most experts' had concluded about
them; and 3) what they believed the Bush administration was
saying about them.
The survey found that 72 percent of Bush supporters believe
either that Iraq had actual WMD (47 percent) or a major
program for producing them (25 percent), despite the
widespread media coverage in early October of the Central
Intelligence Agency (CIA's) 'Duelfer Report,' the final word
on the subject by the one billion dollar, 15-month
investigation by the Iraq Survey Group.
It found that that Hussein had dismantled all of his WMD
programs shortly after the 1991 Gulf War and had never tried
to reconstitute them.
Nonetheless, 56 percent of Bush supporters said they believed
that most experts currently believe that Iraq had actual WMD,
and 57 percent said they thought that the Duelfer Report had
itself concluded that Iraq either had WMD (19 percent) or a
major WMD program (38 percent).
Only 26 percent of Kerry supporters, by contrast, said they
believed that pre-war Iraq had either actual WMD or a WMD
program, and only 18 percent said they believed that 'most
experts' agreed.
Similar results were found with respect to Hussein's alleged
support for al Qaeda, a theory that has been most
persistently asserted by Vice president Dick Cheney, but that
was thoroughly debunked by the final report of the bipartisan
9/11 Commission earlier this summer.
Seventy-five percent of Bush supporters said they believed
that Iraq was providing 'substantial' support to Al Qaeda,
with 20 percent asserting that Iraq was directly involved in
the 9/11 attacks on New York and the Pentagon. Sixty-three
percent of Bush supporters even believed that the clear
evidence of such support has actually been found, and 60
percent believe that 'most experts' have reached the same
conclusion.
By contrast, only 30 percent of Kerry supporters said they
believe that such a link existed and that most experts agree.
But large majorities of both Bush and Kerry supporters agree
that the administration is saying that Iraq had WMD and was
providing substantial support to al Qaeda. In regard to WMD,
those majorities have actually grown since last summer,
according to PIPA.
On WMD, 82 percent of Bush supporters and 84 percent of Kerry
supporters believed that the administration is saying that
Iraq either had WMD or major WMD programs. On ties with al
Qaeda, 75 percent of Bush supporters and 74 percent of Kerry
supporters believe that the administration is saying that
Iraq provided substantial support to the terrorist group.
Remarkably, asked whether the U.S. should have gone to war
with Iraq if U.S. intelligence had concluded that Baghdad did
not have a WMD program and was not providing support to al
Qaeda, 58 percent of Bush supporters said no, and 61 percent
said they assumed that Bush would also not have gone to war
under those circumstances.
'To support the president and to accept that he took the U.S.
to war based on mistaken assumptions,' said Kull, 'likely
creates substantial cognitive dissonance and leads Bush
supporters to suppress awareness of unsettling information
about pre-war Iraq.'
Kull added that this 'cognitive dissonance' could also help
explain other remarkable findings in the survey, particularly
with respect to Bush supporters' misperceptions about the
president's own positions.
In particular, majorities or Bush supporters incorrectly
assumed that he supports multilateral approaches to various
international issues, including the Comprehensive Nuclear
Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) (69 percent), the land mine treaty (72
percent), and the Kyoto Protocol to curb greenhouse gas
emissions that contribute to global warming (51 percent).
In August, two thirds of Bush supporters also said they
believed that Bush supported the International Criminal Court
(ICC), although in the latest poll, that figure dropped to a
53 percent majority, even though Bush explicitly denounced
the ICC in the most widely watched nationally televised
debate of the campaign in late September.
In all of these cases, majorities of Bush supporters said
they favored the positions that they imputed, incorrectly, to
Bush.
Large majorities of Kerry supporters, on the other hand,
showed they knew both their candidate's and Bush's positions
on the same issues.
Bush supporters were also found to hold misperceptions
regarding international support for the president and his
policies.
Despite a steady flow over the past year of official
statements by foreign governments and public-opinion polls
showing strong opposition to the Iraq war, less than one
third of Bush supporters believed that most people in foreign
countries opposed the U.S. having gone to war.
Two thirds said they believed that foreign views were either
evenly divided on the war (42 percent) or that the majority
of foreigners actually favored the war (26 percent).
Three of every four Kerry supporters, on the other hand, said
it was their understanding that the most of the rest of the
world opposed the war.
Similarly, polls conducted during the summer in 35 major
countries around the world found that majorities or
pluralities in 30 of them favored Kerry for president over
Bush by an average of margin of greater than two to one.
Yet 57 percent of Bush supporters said they believed a
majority of people outside the U.S. favored Bush re-election,
and 33 percent said foreign opinion was evenly divided.
Two thirds of Kerry supporters said they though their
candidate was favored overseas; only one percent said they
though most people abroad preferred Bush.
Kull, who has been analyzing U.S. public opinion on foreign-
policy issues for two decades, said misperceptions of Bush
supporters showed, if anything, that hold that the president
has over his loyalists.
'The roots of the Bush supporters' resistance to information
very likely lie in the traumatic experience of 9/11 and
equally into the near pitch-perfect leadership that President
Bush showed in its immediate wake,' he said.
'This appears to have created a powerful bond between Bush
and his supporters - and an idealized image of the President
that makes it difficult for his supporters to imagine that he
could have made incorrect judgments before the war, that
world public opinion would be critical of his policies or
that the president could hold foreign-policy positions that
are at odds with his supporters.'
(c) Copyright 2004 OneWorld.net

 al Qaeda Ties
Gia'.
Nel mio piccolo sondaggio, una quindicina di intervistati in giro per il
New Mexico, nessuno dei Bushiani ha mancato di darmi questa motivazione per
la loro scelta.
P.
-- 
If there's anything more important than my ego around, I want it caught and
shot now.


il lato positivo è che 1 su 4 non ci crede
il lato negativo è che quello che non ci crede ritiene la cosa irrilevante
e vota bush lo stesso.

 e vota bush lo stesso.
Qualcuno si, per motivazioni piu' complesse, sostanzialmente "la guerra in
Iraq non e' necessaria per le WMD ma per la Supremazia Americane, cosi',
con le maiuscole.
P.
-- 
Trillian is one of the least benightedly unintelligent organic lifeforms it
has been my profound lack of pleasure not to have been able to avoid
meeting