IMPEACH BUSH

July 13, 2007 - President Bush may be trying to rally support for his strategy in Iraq, but his efforts are not faring well with the American public, according to the latest NEWSWEEK Poll. Nearly two thirds of Americans believe that the president's troop "surge" has been a failure, poll respondents said. The survey also found broad public support for cutting the number of troops deployed on the battlefield. But in a bright spot for the president, less than 20 percent favored immediate withdrawal.

Nearly seven in 10 (68 percent) Americans disapprove of the way the president is handling the war in Iraq. Public approval of the president's handling of Iraq has remained below the 30 percent mark since January, when he announced his plans to increase the number of troops deployed there. (The public's approval of Bush's overall handling of the war has been below the 50 percent mark since February of 2004).

Sixty-four percent of Americans feel the surge in troops has been a failure, while less than a quarter (22 percent) deem it a success. Nearly a third of Republicans surveyed (31 percent) declare the surge a failure, which may help to explain why several high-profile senior Republicans have defected from the White House on support for the war. While Bush's overall approval rating remains low—just 29 percent—it is up 3 points from another NEWSWEEK sounding earlier this month.

Still, Americans remain cautious about the prospect of a hasty withdrawal from Iraq, afraid it would leave the country in chaos. Out of four possible options in the poll, 19 percent of the respondents chose immediate total withdrawal. Slightly fewer (13 percent) don't want any cutbacks at all. Nearly a quarter of all Americans (24 percent) would implement a gradual withdrawal plan that would start in the fall and extend until the spring, when the last troops would come home. Forty percent favor keeping a substantial number of troops on the ground there, but only on the condition that they fall back to their bases and focus solely on training Iraqis and targeting Al Qaeda. And yet a majority (53 percent) want troops to remain for no more than a year. Only 19 percent could embrace the idea of maintaining a military presence in Iraq for up to two years, even at a reduced number.

Despite the wide support for cutbacks in troops, only about three in 10 (29 percent) are somewhat or very confident that the Iraqi government is equipped to control sectarian violence and provide security to its citizens once troops pull out. A majority (65 percent) of the public are not too or not at all confident that Iraqi leaders would be able to forge a power-sharing arrangement among competing Sunni, Shia and Kurdish groups. Still, a similar number (55 percent) believe the U.S. should not condition further American troop presence there on Iraqis' readiness to defend themselves. Close to half (48 percent) support dividing the country into three independent states, effectively abandoning the goal of a unified Iraq. One third (33 percent) of the poll's respondents are not prepared to go this route.

At his press conference Thursday, the president characterized the current state of war in Iraq as a showdown with Al Qaeda and warned that withdrawal would risk "mass killings on a horrific scale." Critics have called his assertions that the organization is responsible for both the violence in Iraq and the 2001 attacks on the U.S. an oversimplification. Last month's poll found that 41 percent of Americans still believe Saddam Hussein's regime was directly involved in financing, planning or carrying out the attacks on 9/11, even though no evidence has surfaced to support a connection.) In the latest poll, a third of Americans (34 percent) believe that the group Al Qaeda in Iraq is the biggest threat to lasting peace in Iraq. Fewer think Shiite militias (14 percent) or Sunni nationalists (9 percent) pose the more serious obstacle to peace.

Still, 40 percent tend to lay the blame for problems in Iraq squarely at the president's feet. A third (33 percent) blame Iraqi leaders and just 13 percent blame Congress, which voted in favor of the war. Just 2 percent feel the U.S. military is responsible for ongoing instability there. Republicans were more likely to blame Iraqi leaders (52 percent) while Democrats tended to fault the White House (54 percent).

The NEWSWEEK Poll was conducted by Princeton Survey Research Associates International on July 11-12. Telephone interviews were conducted with 1,003 adults, age 18 and older; the overall margin of error is plus or minus 4 percentage points. The margin of error for questions asked only of Democrats and Democratic leaners is plus or minus 6 percentage points; for Republicans and GOP leaners, 7 percentage points.

© 2007 Newsweek, Inc.