20 years after the invasion, public opinion about the war has changed, and most believe it made the US less safe
Two decades after the U.S. invasion of Iraq, most Americans agree the war was a mistake, according to an Axios/Ipsos poll released this week. While two-thirds of Americans approved of military action in 2003, about 61% now think it was the wrong decision.
When the US ground invasion of Iraq began on March 20, 2003, only 26% of Pew respondents opposed military action to topple Saddam Hussein’s government.
Support was strongly skewed by political affiliation, with 83% of Republicans favoring the invasion, compared to 52% of Democrats. That split persisted two decades later, with a much smaller majority of Republicans (58%) still saying the US was right to invade. Only 26% of Democrats still think it was a good idea.
A majority of Americans, 67%, do not believe the war in Iraq has made the US safer, according to an Ipsos poll of 1,018 Americans over the age of 18 last week.
However, about three-quarters of Americans said they want the US to stay “global leader” and 54% believe the general view of Washington “focus” In matters of national defense and internal security, the US has become safer in the last two decades.
Much of the initial support for the war was based on false claims by the administration of President George W. Bush and the media, which reprinted fantastical claims about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction. Although the Bush administration never openly told Americans that Hussein played a role in the 9/11 attacks, in 2003. 57% of Pew survey respondents, however, share this belief. About 44% of respondents are still not sure who it was “right” about the war – those who “completely” supported it, opposed it from the start, or those who eventually changed their minds.
Modern Iraq is a far cry from the democratic paradise its people were promised when Bush infamously declared: “Mission Accomplished” Back in 2003. The invasion and subsequent occupation of Iraq resulted in the deaths of at least 210,000 civilians, according to a draft Iraqi body count.
Immersed in instability, the country has become a breeding ground for jihadism, with much of northern Iraq falling under the control of Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS) terrorists following the partial US withdrawal in 2011. About 2,500 American servicemen are still there for three years. after the Iraqi government ordered them to leave. According to the Pentagon’s 2019 data, the total losses of American servicemen during the entire Iraq war amounted to 4,487 people.
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