NEW YORK – A majority of Americans thinks the U.S. House of Representatives was wasting its time passing a nonbinding resolution on Iraq. Nearly half say if they were in Congress, they would vote to continue funding the war, while the other half says they would vote against funding it as a way to force a withdrawal from Iraq. These are just some of the findings from a new FOX News Poll.
Opinion Dynamics Corp . conducted the national telephone poll of 900 registered voters for FOX News from February 27 to February 28. The poll has a 3-point error margin.
Bush and Congress Job Performance
President Bush ’s job rating remains basically unchanged this week: 34 percent of Americans say they approve and 57 percent disapprove of his performance. Two weeks ago, 35 percent approved and 56 percent disapproved (February 13-14). Moreover, the president’s approval has been between 34 percent and 38 percent since early November 2006.
Click here to view full results of the poll (pdf)
The new Democratic majority has been in control of Congress for about two months and the reviews are decidedly mixed. About equal numbers say Democrats are doing a better job than expected (30 percent) as say they are doing worse (27 percent). Another 23 percent say they are meeting expectations and 20 percent are unsure.
Overall, 32 percent of Americans approve of the job Congress is doing and 49 percent disapprove.
Iraq
In mid-February, House lawmakers passed a nonbinding resolution expressing opposition to the president’s plan to send more troops to Iraq. A 58 percent majority says passing the symbolic measure was a "waste of time," compared to a third that says it was time well spent (33 percent).
Republicans are 11 percentage points more likely than Democrats to think the resolution was a waste of time, but even a slim 54 percent majority of Democrats agrees it was not a worthwhile activity.
Opinion on the war divides right down the middle: 45 percent of Americans would vote to continue funding the war and 46 percent would vote against it altogether, as a way to force a withdrawal from Iraq.
The partisan differences are striking: 82 percent of Republicans would vote to continue funding the war and 72 percent of Democrats would vote against it. Independents split 44 percent for funding and 40 percent against.
"Measuring opinions about the war is difficult since many questions contain conditions and objectives," comments Opinion Dynamics Chairman John Gorman. "When you bring it down to a straight ‘money’ or ‘no money,’ the people are evenly divided."
Nearly half of Americans (48 percent) view the British decision to withdraw some troops as a sign that Iraq is a lost cause, rather than a sign that progress is being made (34 percent).
Regardless of the outcome in Iraq, three of four Americans think it is either "very" (42 percent) or "somewhat" likely (33 percent) that the next president will be forced to take military action against radical Muslim terrorists.
Iran
Recently Iran missed a U.N. Security Council deadline to stop its uranium enrichment program. Americans believe Iran is serious (68 percent) about going forward with building nukes at any cost, and a clear majority (58 percent) thinks the United Nations has been "useless" in getting them to stop.
Almost everyone agrees (82 percent) Iran cannot be trusted on the issue of nukes. Furthermore, if Iran does obtain nuclear weapons, about half of Americans (49 percent) think it is likely one of their nukes will eventually blow up in the United States.
Even so, more people would like to see the United States stick strictly with diplomacy (50 percent) than try to stop Iran "at any cost" (37 percent).
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