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VIEWS ON THE
WAR IN IRAQ TWENTY YEARS LATER; Reflections On The War In Iraq,20 Years
Later: Three Polls In Three Stakeholder Countries, Carried Independently By
Arab Barometer In Iraq, PEW In USA And You Gov In The UK
Iraq’s Pulse Twenty Years After The
Invasion
 On March 20, 2003, U.S. forces
invaded Iraq and toppled the regime of Saddam Hussein. The U.S. then
set about a political transformation of Iraq with the stated goal of bringing about democracy, including instilling a parliamentary system with regular elections. Since that time,
Iraq has suffered significant turmoil, including an armed resistance
against the U.S., civil conflict, and the eventual takeover of large swaths
of the country by the Islamic State. Today, Iraq remains deeply
divided. The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) operates largely
autonomously from the remainder of the country while the parliament in
Baghdad remains disunified, only forming a government a full year after the October 2021 elections.
Twenty years after the invasion, Arab Barometer
provides insight into the extent to which support for democracy has or has
not taken root in the country. The results make clear that while
Iraqis remained very committed to the idea of democracy up until the early
2010s, doubts about this system have increased significantly in the years
after 2013. Now, although a majority of Iraqis continue to favor
democracy, they are among the most skeptical populations across MENA about
this system of governance.
Commitment to democracy
Overall, two-thirds (68 percent) of Iraqis still
affirm that despite its problems, democracy remains the best system of
governance. However, this belief has fallen by 15 points since 2011
when it stood at 83 percent. Additionally, this level is among the
lowest found across the twelve countries surveyed in MENA in Arab Barometer
Wave 7 (2021-2022), with only Egypt (65 percent) and Morocco (54 percent)
exhibiting lower levels of support for democracy.
The main reason for this drop appears to be growing
doubts in the benefits associated with democracy. In 2011, just a
quarter (26 percent) of Iraqis said that economic performance was weak
under a democratic system. In 2013, this percentage was only 21
percent. However, this level jumped to half of citizens (51 percent)
in 2018 and then 72 percent in 2022.
The results are similar for other concerns that are
sometimes associated with democracy. When asked if democracies are
indecisive and full of problems, about three-in-ten agreed in 2011 (29
percent) and 2013 (27 percent). By 2018, this level had doubled to 58
percent with a further rise of 13 points to 71 percent in 2022. The
same trend is also found for the belief that democratic systems are no
effective at maintaining stability, rising from 23 percent in 2011 to 70
percent in 2022.
Failings of the political system
Iraqis’ growing concerns about democracy closely track
with developments in their country over this period. Ratings of
economic performance have declined since 2013, which was also the low water
mark for concerns about potential problems associated with democracy.
At that time, when oil prices were at near record highs, about half (52
percent) of Iraqis rated the economy as good or very good. In 2018
just 21 percent said the same compared with 26 percent in 2022.
Meanwhile, levels of trust in the government have fallen
dramatically since the early 2010s. In 2013, almost half (47 percent)
of Iraqis had confidence in the government, which is nearly twice the
percentage as in 2022 (26 percent). Meanwhile, trust in parliament
has been consistently low, with fewer than three-in-ten exhibiting
confidence in this body since 2011. By comparison, the legal system (40
percent) and local government (33 percent) currently fair somewhat better
in the eyes of Iraqis, but still only a minority of citizens have
confidence in either.
A key issue that hurts the legitimacy of the
government is the fact that even though regular elections are taking place,
few in the country believe elections are fully free and fair. In
fact, the plurality say they are not free and fair (42 percent) while a
further 27 percent say they are largely free and fair but have minor
problems. Only three-in-ten (29 percent) believe that the October
2021 parliamentary elections were entirely free and fair.
Another challenge undermining confidence in public
institutions is corruption. Nine-in-ten Iraqis say that there is
corruption to a great or medium extent in state institutions, which is
essentially unchanged since 2011. Today, this level is among the
highest in the ten MENA countries for which data are available.
Moreover, a quarter (26 percent) of Iraqis say that corruption is the most
important challenge facing the country, which is a greater percentage than
for the economic situation, foreign interference, or instability.
Among all countries surveyed across the region in 2021-2022, only in one
other does corruption rank ahead of all other challenges, underscoring the
degree to which this ongoing scourge plagues Iraq.
Compounding these challenges is the failure of
government institutions to provide citizens with quality services.
Fewer than one-in-three Iraqis are satisfied or completely satisfied with
basic services such as trash collection (31 percent), the healthcare system
(29 percent), the education system (23 percent), and the quality of the
country’s streets (22 percent). Ratings of the government’s performance on
narrowing the wealth gap (22 percent) and limiting inflation (19 percent)
are similar.
What do Iraqis want from their
political system?
Twenty years after the fall of the regime of Saddam
Hussein, Iraqis are looking for a robust political system that yields
results. Although they affirm that democracy is the best type of
system, clear majorities would be willing to accept an alternative system
of governance if it would produce outcomes that improve their current
situation. For example, three-quarters say that it does not matter if
the country is democratic or undemocratic so long as the government can maintain
stability. Among all countries surveyed, this percentage is joint
highest with Libya, which is a country experiencing a civil conflict.
When asked if they agree with the statement that as
long as the government can solve the economic problems, it does not matter
what kind of government it is, eight-in-ten (79 percent) Iraqis
agree. This level is again the highest in the MENA countries
surveyed, ranking slightly above the percentage in Tunisia and Libya.
Finally, when asked if the country needs a leader who can bend the rules if
necessary to get things done, nearly nine-in-ten Iraqis agree, which is
greater than in any other country included in the survey.
After years of civil unrest, Iraqis continue to
believe that there is no better system than democracy but are also tired of
waiting for the political system created in 2005 to deliver results.
Frustrations about the economy, the inability of the government to ensure
stability, rampant corruption, and the poor state of public services have taken
their toll. Elections have not resulted in governments that have been
able to address these root problems, or at least not for all the country’s
citizens. As a result, citizens are losing faith in this political
system and appear to be blaming democracy for some of these failures,
including the poor economic and security situation in the country.
Stemming the tide would require significant
changes. Nearly half (45 percent) of Iraqis favor major political
reforms to be introduced immediately while another 45 percent want reforms
to be introduced more gradually. Combined, that means that nearly all
citizens agree that reform is needed. If the political system
delivered meaningful improvements to the lives of citizens, it is likely
that faith in democracy as a system of government would be rebuilt.
If such changes do not take place, it becomes increasingly likely that
support for democracy will continue to decline in the years ahead.
(Arabbarometer)
March 13, 2023
Source: https://www.arabbarometer.org/2023/03/12780/
A Look Back At How Fear And False
Beliefs Bolstered U.S. Public Support For War In Iraq
Twenty years ago this month, the United States launched
a major military invasion of Iraq, marking the second time it fought a war
in that country in a little more than a decade. It was the start of an
eight-year conflict that resulted in the deaths of more than 4,000 U.S.
servicemembers and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis.
The war began March 19, 2003, with an overwhelming
show of American military might, described by the unforgettable phrase
“shock and awe.” Within weeks, the United States achieved the primary
objective of Operation Iraqi Freedom, as the military operation was called,
ousting the regime of dictator Saddam Hussein.
Yet the military campaign that began so auspiciously
ended up deeply dividing Americans and alienating key U.S. allies. As Americans looked back on the war four years ago, 62% said it was not worth
fighting. Majorities of military veterans, including those who served in
Iraq or Afghanistan, came to the same conclusion.
The bleak retrospective judgments on the war obscure
the breadth of public support for U.S. military action at the start of the
conflict and, perhaps more importantly, in the months leading up to it.
Throughout 2002 and early 2003, President George W. Bush and his
administration marshaled wide backing for the use of military force in Iraq
among both the public and Congress.
The administration’s success in these efforts was the
result of several factors, not least of which was the climate of public
opinion at the time. Still reeling from the horrors of the Sept. 11, 2001,
terrorist attacks, Americans were extraordinarily accepting of the possible
use of military force as part of what Bush called the “global war on terror.”
By early 2002, with U.S. troops already fighting in Afghanistan,
large majorities of Americans favored the use of military force in Iraq to
oust Hussein from power and to destroy terrorist groups in Somalia and
Sudan. These attitudes represented “a strong endorsement of the prospective
use of force compared with other military missions in the post-Cold War
era,” Pew Research Center noted at the time.
Bush and senior members of his administration then
spent more than a year outlining the dangers that they claimed Iraq posed
to the United States and its allies. Two of the administration’s arguments
proved especially powerful, given the public’s mood: first, that Hussein’s
regime possessed “weapons of mass destruction” (WMD), a shorthand for
nuclear, biological or chemical weapons; and second, that it supported
terrorism and had close ties to terrorist groups, including al-Qaida, which
had attacked the U.S. on 9/11.
As numerous investigations by independent and governmental commissions subsequently found, there was no
factual basis for either of these assertions. Two decades later, debate continues about whether the administration was the victim
of flawed intelligence, or whether Bush and his senior advisers
deliberately misled the public about its WMD capabilities, in particular.
In the months leading up to the war, sizable
majorities of Americans believed that Iraq either possessed WMD or was
close to obtaining them, that Iraq was closely tied to terrorism – and even
that Hussein himself had a role in the 9/11 attacks. Two decades after the
war began, a review of Pew Research Center surveys on the war in Iraq shows
that support for U.S. military action was built, at least in part, on a
foundation of falsehoods.
 “Iraq continues to flaunt its hostility toward
America and to support terror,” President George W. Bush told the nation in
his first State of the Union address in 2002. (Douglas Graham/Roll
Call/Getty Images)
The path to war: From the ‘axis of
evil’ to a ‘mushroom cloud’
In his 2002 State of the Union address, Bush began making the case for why the United
States might need to use military force to remove Saddam Hussein from
power. “Iraq continues to flaunt its hostility toward America and to
support terror,” he said. “The Iraqi regime has plotted to develop anthrax
and nerve gas, and nuclear weapons, for over a decade.”
Iraq was one of three countries, along with Iran and
North Korea, that constituted an “axis of evil,” according to Bush. But
Iraq drew much more attention from the former president than did those
countries. “This is a regime that has something to hide from the civilized
world,” Bush said.
Even before his speech, Americans were inclined to
believe the worst about Hussein’s regime. In a survey conducted a few weeks prior to
the State of the Union, 73% favored military action in
Iraq to end Hussein’s rule; just 16% were opposed. More than half (56%)
said the U.S. should take action against Iraq “even if it meant U.S. forces
might suffer thousands of casualties.”
Bush delivered this address, among the most memorable
of his presidency, just four months after the terrorist attacks in New York
City and near Washington, D.C., and Shanksville, Pennsylvania. Americans
remained on edge: 62% said they were very or somewhat worried another
terrorist attack was imminent.
At that point, more than a year before the United
States went to war, Americans overwhelmingly embraced several possible
rationales for military action: 83% said that if the U.S. learned that Iraq
had aided the 9/11 terrorists, that would be a “very important reason” to
use military force in Iraq; nearly as many said the same if it was shown
that Iraq was developing WMD (77%) or harboring other terrorists (75%).
Over the next several months, Bush and other senior
officials claimed with varying degrees of certainty that there was evidence
justifying the use of U.S. military force. In a speech to a Veterans of
Foreign Wars convention in August 2002, former Vice President Dick Cheney was unequivocal in asserting: “Simply stated, there is no doubt
that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction. There is no doubt
he is amassing them to use against our friends, against our allies, and
against us.”
On other occasions, Bush and his advisers suggested
that even if there was no definitive proof that Iraq possessed WMD, it was
too risky not to act, given Hussein’s failure to abide by UN weapons
resolutions. “The problem here is that there will always be some
uncertainty about how quickly he [Hussein] can acquire nuclear weapons,”
said National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice in a CNN interview. “But we don’t want the smoking gun to be a mushroom
cloud.”
Such warnings resonated strongly with Americans: Most
believed that Hussein either already possessed WMD or was close to
obtaining them. In October 2002, 65% of the public said Hussein was close to having nuclear
weapons, while another 14% volunteered that he already possessed them. Just
11% said he was not close to developing such weapons.
That month, Congress overwhelmingly approved a resolution authorizing Bush to use the U.S. armed forces
“as he determines to be necessary and appropriate” to defend the security
of the United States and enforce UN resolutions on Iraq. (This month, more
than 20 years after it passed, Congress is moving to repeal the resolution.)
In addition to alleging that Hussein possessed (or
was on the verge of obtaining) unconventional weapons, administration
officials also repeatedly linked his regime to terrorists and terrorism.
For the most part, these allegations were vague and unspecified, but on
occasion, senior officials – including the president himself – directly
connected Iraq with al-Qaida, the terrorist group that attacked the United
States on 9/11. “We know that Iraq and the al-Qaida terrorist network share
a common enemy – the United States of America,” Bush said that October. “We know that Iraq and al-Qaida have had high-level
contacts that go back a decade.”
Neither Bush nor senior administration officials directly linked Iraq or its leader to the
planning or execution of the 9/11 attacks. Yet a sizable majority of
Americans believed that Hussein aided the terrorist attacks that took
nearly 3,000 lives.
The same month that Congress approved the use of
force resolution against Iraq, 66% of the public said that “Saddam Hussein
helped the terrorists in the September 11th attacks”; just 21% said he was
not involved in 9/11. In February 2003, a month before the war began, that belief was only
somewhat less widespread; 57% thought Hussein had supported the 9/11
terrorists.
It is not entirely clear why so many Americans –
including majorities in both parties – embraced this falsehood. But by
connecting Hussein to terrorism and the group that attacked the United
States, administration officials blurred the lines between Iraq and 9/11.
“The notion was reinforced by these hints, the discussions that they had
about possible links” with al-Qaida terrorists, the late Andrew Kohut,
founding director of Pew Research Center, told The Washington Post after the war was underway in 2003.
 Thousands of protesters rallied for peace in New York
City on Feb. 15, 2003. (Don Emmert/AFP/Getty Images)
As prospects for war grew, thousands
took to the streets to protest
In the months leading up to the war, majorities of
between 55% and 68% said they favored taking military action to end
Hussein’s rule in Iraq. No more than about a third opposed military action.
However, support for military action in Iraq was
consistently less pronounced among a handful of demographic and partisan
groups.
The Center’s final survey before the U.S.
invasion, conducted in mid-February 2003, highlighted these differences: Women were about 10
percentage points less likely than men to support the use of military force
against Iraq (61% vs. 71%).
A sizable majority of Republicans and
Republican-leaning independents (83%) favored the use of military force to
end Hussein’s rule. Democrats and Democratic leaners were less supportive;
still, more Democrats favored (52%) than opposed (40%) military action.
Yet Democrats were divided in opinions about whether
to go to war in Iraq, with liberal Democrats less likely than conservative
and moderate Democrats to favor using military force.
To build greater backing for the use of force among
U.S. allies – and assuage lingering public concerns about war – the
administration dispatched one of its most popular figures, Secretary of
State Colin Powell, to the UN Security Council. In a pivotal moment in the Iraq debate, Powell presented what he described as “facts and
conclusions, based on solid intelligence” to show that Iraq had failed to
comply with UN weapons resolutions. “Leaving Saddam Hussein in possession
of weapons of mass destruction for a few more months or years is not an
option, not in a post-Sept. 11 world,” Powell said.
Powell’s address had a significant impact on U.S.
public opinion, even among those who were opposed to war. Roughly six-in-ten adults (61%) said Powell had explained clearly why the
United States might use military force to end Hussein’s rule; that was
greater than the share saying Bush had clearly explained the stakes in Iraq
(52%). Powell was particularly persuasive among those who were opposed to
using force in Iraq: 39% said he had clearly explained why the U.S. may
need to take military action, about twice the share saying the same about
Bush.
In a last-ditch effort to prevent war, millions of
protestors took to the streets in numerous cities across the world and in
the U.S. on Feb. 15. While the largest demonstrations were in London and Rome, several hundred thousand antiwar protesters crowded
the streets of New York City, with some carrying signs saying “No Blood for
Oil.”
 Secretary of State Colin Powell presented to
the UN Security Council what he said was evidence of Iraq’s
chemical and biological warfare capabilities on Feb. 5, 2003. (Timothy A.
Clary/AFP via Getty Images)
Americans initially rallied behind
the war; then support plummeted
After the war began, administration officials were
confident that the United States would quickly prevail. For a time, it
appeared they would be right: U.S. and allied forces easily overwhelmed the
Iraqi army.
By April 9, U.S. forces and Iraqi civilians brought
down a statue of Saddam Hussein in a Baghdad square. And on May 1, Bush
stood on the deck of the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln – in front of
a banner proclaiming “Mission Accomplished” – and declared that major
combat operations had ended.
 U.S. Marines pull down the statue of Saddam Hussein
in the center of Baghdad on April 9, 2003. (Mirrorpix/Getty Images)
Yet the war continued for another eight years. Public
support for the use of U.S. military force in Iraq, which rose to 74%
during the month that Bush gave what became known as his “Mission
Accomplished” speech, never again reached that level.
As U.S. forces faced a mounting Iraqi insurgency, a
growing share of Americans – especially Democrats – expressed doubts about
the war. The share of Americans saying the U.S. military effort in Iraq was
going well, which surpassed 90% in the war’s early weeks, fell to about 60%
in late summer 2003.
There had been partisan differences in attitudes
related to Iraq since Bush began raising the prospect of war in 2002. But
as the war continued, these differences intensified: In October 2003, a 56% majority of Democrats said that U.S. forces
should be brought home from Iraq as soon as possible, a 12-point increase
from just a month earlier. By contrast, fewer than half of independents
(40%) and just 20% of Republicans favored withdrawing U.S. troops.
Support for U.S. military action declined further the
next year as two incidents brought the horrors of war home to Americans. In
March 2004, four American private security contractors were killed and their bodies desecrated in a
spate of anti-American violence. Then, the first pictures emerged of abuse
of prisoners by U.S. troops at Abu Ghraib, an Iraqi
prison. In a survey that May, the share of Americans who said the use of military
force was going at least “fairly well” fell below 50% for the first time.
 U.S. Marines patrol the streets of Fallujah, Iraq, in
December 2004. (Tauseef Mustafa/AFP via Getty Images)
Bush’s reelection as president in November
underscored the extent to which the war in Iraq had divided the nation.
Among the narrow majority of voters (51%) who then approved of the decision
to go to war, 85% voted for Bush; among the smaller share (45%) who
disapproved, 87% voted for his Democratic opponent, John Kerry, according
to national exit polls.
Public support for the war declined further during
Bush’s second term. By January 2007, with the situation on the ground
deteriorating, Bush defied growing calls from Democrats to withdraw U.S.
forces from Iraq and instead announced that he was sending more troops to the country. What
Bush called “a new way forward” in Iraq – which became more widely known as the
troop surge, or surge – was a risky gambit to alter the trajectory of the
war.
The new strategy, in which more than 20,000
additional U.S. forces were deployed to Iraq, was broadly unpopular with a
public that had grown weary of war. By roughly two-to-one (61% to 31%), Americans opposed Bush’s plan to send additional
forces to Iraq. Bush’s new strategy “triggered increased partisan
polarization on the debate over what to do in Iraq,” the Center noted in
its report on the January 2007 survey.
Still, while the overall impact of the surge on Iraq
was intensely debated, it was widely credited with helping to reduce the
level of violence in the country, both among U.S. troops and Iraqi civilians. While Americans acknowledged the improvement in the
situation in Iraq, they remained deeply skeptical of the decision to go to
war.
In November 2007, nearly half of Americans (48%) said the war was
going very or fairly well, an 18 percentage point increase from February of
that year. Yet support for withdrawing U.S. forces from Iraq was
undiminished; by 54% to 41%, more Americans favored bringing troops home
from Iraq as soon as possible rather than keeping troops there until the
situation had stabilized. Those attitudes were virtually unchanged
from earlier in 2007.
With the 2008 presidential campaign approaching – and
roughly 100,000 U.S. troops still in Iraq – it seemed likely that the war
would again be a major issue. During the Democratic primaries, Barack Obama repeatedly contrasted his early opposition to the war with Hillary Clinton’s 2002 Senate vote in
support of the war authorization.
However, after Obama defeated Clinton for the
Democratic nomination and faced John McCain in the general election, the
Iraq War was increasingly overshadowed by turmoil in financial markets,
which triggered a worldwide economic crisis. In national exit polls conducted after Obama’s victory over McCain,
63% of voters cited the economy as the most important issue facing the
country; just 10% mentioned the war in Iraq.
During the 2008 campaign, Obama vowed to end the war in Iraq, adding that the
United States “would be as careful getting out of Iraq as we were careless
getting in.” Three years later, the U.S. withdrew all but a handful of its
troops; in a ceremony on Dec. 15, 2011, the United States lowered the flag of command that
had flown over Baghdad. President Obama’s decision drew overwhelming public
support. A month before the ceremony, 75% of Americans – including nearly half of
Republicans – approved of his decision to withdraw all combat troops from
Iraq.
 A flag-raising ceremony in Baghdad on Dec. 15,
2011, marked the end of U.S. military operations in Iraq. (Pablo Martinez
Monsivais–Pool/Getty Images)
Yet Obama soon discovered how difficult it would be
for the U.S. to fully disengage from Iraq. In 2014, a new security threat
emerged in Iraq – the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, or ISIS. With ISIS
taking over territory in Iraq and committing high-profile terrorist acts,
the group quickly became one of the U.S. public’s top security threats. In
response, Obama reluctantly authorized U.S. airstrikes and dispatched a small number of U.S. forces
back to Iraq. Five years later, his successor, then-President Donald Trump,
claimed that the group was on the verge of defeat in Iraq and Syria, although some U.S. security officials say it remains a threat.
Judgments on the Iraq War and its
impact on Bush’s legacy
The Iraq War has a long and complicated legacy. After
the war officially ended, it remained an issue, to varying degrees, in both
the 2012 and 2016 presidential
election campaigns. Even in the 2020 campaign, nearly a decade after the war’s end, Trump and Joe
Biden each portrayed themselves as better able to extricate the nation from
what have been called “endless wars” – the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
By that point, most Americans had largely moved on
from the war. Shortly before the United States withdrew its forces in
2011, a majority of Americans (56%) had concluded that, despite the war’s enormous
costs, the U.S. had “mostly succeeded” in achieving its goals in Iraq.
But over the next few years, that belief faded.
By 2018, the 15th
anniversary of the start of the war, just 39% of Americans said the U.S.
had succeeded in Iraq, while 53% said it had failed to achieve its goals.
Even among Republicans, who had consistently favored
the use of U.S. military force throughout the war and before it began,
there were divisions over whether the U.S. had achieved its goals in Iraq.
Only about half (48%) of Republicans and Republican leaners said the U.S.
had succeeded, although that was 10 points higher than four years earlier.
The Iraq War will long be associated with the
presidency of George W. Bush, its primary architect and one of its
strongest advocates. When Bush looked back at the war in his 2010 memoir,
“Decision Points,” he acknowledged that mistakes had been made. Among them,
he said in an interview with NBC News, was his
2003 “Mission Accomplished” speech. “No question it was a mistake,” Bush
said.
As far as the failure to find WMD in Iraq, “no one
was more shocked and angry than I was when we didn’t find the weapons,”
Bush said. Still, he was insistent that going to war in Iraq and removing
Hussein from power was the right thing to do.
The war’s impact on Americans’ views of Bush’s
presidency was underscored in a December 2008 survey, conducted shortly before he left office. Asked what
Bush would be most remembered for, roughly half (51%) cited wars, with 29%
specifically mentioning the war in Iraq. No other issue, not even Bush’s
leadership following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, was mentioned as
frequently.
(PEW)
MARCH 14, 2023
Source: https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2023/03/14/a-look-back-at-how-fear-and-false-beliefs-bolstered-u-s-public-support-for-war-in-iraq/
Iraq War: 20 Years Later, What Do
Britons Think About The Conflict
One in five Britons believe Tony
Blair should be tried as a war criminal
It is two decades since Britain and the United States
joined forces to go to war with Iraq, a decision then supported by more
than half of the British public.
The conflict’s long-lasting legacy is starkly
highlighted in a new YouGov poll that shows that at least four in ten
British people think the Iraq war left the world a less safe place (41%),
increased rather than decreased the risk of terrorist attacks on Britain (54%
to 5%) and made the lives of ordinary Iraqis worse (43%) instead of better
(8%).
A quarter of Britons think the US
and Britain were right to go to war with Iraq
In 2003, YouGov conducted 21 polls between March and
December asking people whether the decision to go to war was right or wrong
– on average, 54% of Britons thought it was right.
With 20 years of hindsight, the proportion of Britons
who now think that the US and Britain were right to take military action
against Iraq stands at just 23%, while 47% think it was the wrong thing to
do.
Four in ten Britons think Tony Blair
deliberately misled the public
At 42% to 25%, British people tend to believe Tony
Blair – PM at the time of the Iraq war – deliberately set out to mislead
the British public about whether the country possessed so-called chemical
and biological weapons of mass destruction.
Analysis of YouGov’s historic polling shows the
proportion who think he did mislead Britain has fallen from 52% in January
2010.
Given the passage of time, it is perhaps unsurprising
that the proportion of those who don’t know has risen – 33% of Britons now
say they don’t know, compared to 16% in 2010.
However, the proportion of the British public who
believe Blair should be tried as a war criminal over his involvement in the
Iraq war has stayed steady throughout the years, with 21% of Britons now
believing he knowingly misled Parliament and the public and should be
tried, compared to 23% in 2010.
A similar proportion of Britons – 23% — say Blair was
right to warn that Saddam Hussein’s regime was extremely dangerous, even if
some of the details were wrong. That’s down from 31% in 2010.
And 15% say he misled Parliament and the public about
the scale of the threat from Iraq, but did so unintentionally — while 18%
think he knowingly did so, but that no action should be taken against him
as a result.
Would Iraq have been better
off left under the rule of Saddam Hussein?
A fifth of Britons (19%) say the casualties, deaths
and regional instability caused by the invasion of Iraq are so great that
the country’s people would have been better off left under the rule of
Saddam Hussein.
More, however, believe that despite the horrors of
war, casualties, and the difficult years since, Iraqis are still better off
today than they were under Hussein – 29% of Britons believe this to be the
case.
The proportion of Britons who think the Iraqi people
are better off has fallen since the tenth anniversary of the conflict, when
41% of the public said the same.
Levels of uncertainty in this regard have grown
considerably over the course of a decade – 32% of Britons now say they
don’t know whether or not Iraqis are better or worse off than they were
living under Hussein’s rule, compared to 18% in March 2013.
(YouGov UK)
March 21, 2023
Source: https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2023/03/21/iraq-war-20-years-later-what-do-britons-think-abou
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