IMPEACH BUSH

WASHINGTON, March 30 (UPI) -- The damage to U.S. credibility regarding Iraqi weapons could affect the believability of similar charges against Iran, a UPI-Zogby International poll shows.

U.S. President George Bush claimed Iraq was developing weapons of mass destruction and Baghdad posed an imminent danger to the United States. It was one of his key arguments for launching the invasion four years ago.

But no weapons of mass destruction were found in Iraq and faith in U.S. intelligence gathering was severely diminished.

That carried over to a March 14-16 Zogby interactive poll, in which U.S. residents were asked whether that Iraqi experience affected U.S. credibility regarding Iran's nuclear intentions.

Some 41.8 percent of respondents said U.S. credibility has been severely damaged. About one-quarter -- 23.4 percent -- said there was no damage.

Asked about a hypothetical U.S. announcement on Iranian weapons development, respondents were mostly likely to say such acclaim would not be very credible (39.3 percent) and not at all credible (17.8). The "somewhat credible" answer pulled 32.7 percent of responses and "very credible" was chosen by 7.5 percent.

There were 4,824 participants in the poll, giving the data a margin of error of 1.4 percentage points.