As the Democratic race has tightened up through the big primaries today, one of the bones of contention between supporters of Hillary Clinton and advocates of Barack Obama has been — rightly — her support for the Authorization to Use Military Force in Iraq in October 2002. Obama didn’t vote on it because he was still a couple of years away from running for the Senate but he did give some pretty unambiguous statements (at the time) against the war.
When Obama partisans attack Clinton on the vote, their standard response is that public opinion at the time was overwhelming in favor of taking out Saddam. That narrative, however, is false, much as Jim Lehrer’s claim that 85% of Congress supported the war. Not only was Clinton in a minority of the Democratic party (40%) in her support for the AUMF, but at the time of the vote, even large portions of the public were wary.
A Gallup report titled “Nine Key Questions About Public Opinion on Iraq” came out On 1 October 2002, just a week-and-a-half before the AUMF vote. At the time Clinton’s supporters claim that there was overwhelming public support for removing Saddam Hussein from power, the report had this to say:
Basic support for the use of American ground troops to remove Saddam Hussein from power has remained steady throughout the month of September. The Sept. 20-22 CNN/USA Today/Gallup Poll found that 57% of Americans said they favored such action, while 38% opposed it. There are similar (and sometimes higher) levels of support as measured by other polls, ranging from 58% support in a Sept. 24-25 Fox News poll to 68% in a Sept. 22-23 CBS News poll. Most of the basic questions that have been asked about Iraq are phrased in a similar fashion, emphasizing U.S. military action, and specifically mentioning the regime changing action of removing Saddam Hussein from power.
About 60%, eh? What else did Americans think?
Women are much more likely than men to think the war against Iraq could be a long one. Less than a majority of men (44%) express that view, compared with close to two-thirds of women (65%), a 21 percentage point gender gap.
Give a point to the women! Although, not, I think, to Hillary Clinton on that one.
There are also major differences between Democrats, and Republicans and independents. While the latter two groups are about evenly divided over the question, showing just two- and three-point margins in favor of a long war, Democrats predict a long over a short war by a margin of 28 percentage points, 63% to 35%.
Yay, Democrats. We predicted the long war. Although, again, I have to wonder if Hillary Clinton saw that one coming.
Question 7 is where some really interesting numbers show up. It addresses the AUMF directly and mentions whether restrictions should be put on the grant of authority.
A mid-September Gallup Poll, however, found a slim majority opposed to giving Bush the broad latitude he was originally looking for (Bush has since revised the wording that he is asking be included in the Congressional resolution). According to the Sept. 20-22 survey, only 47% of Americans said Congress should vote to give Bush “unlimited authority to use military action against Iraq whenever he feels it is necessary.” Fifty-one percent said they should not give Bush this authority.
In other words, half of the people surveyed didn’t want the president to have unchecked power.
And remember that whole thing about “intelligence failures” and how people were surprised that the stories that convinced US Senators and Representatives didn’t convince the French, the Germans, the Russians, the Chinese, etc.? A lot of people didn’t think Congress was doing its job to find out what exactly was going on in the run-up to the war.
Members of Congress who are reluctant to voice opposition to the president on the subject of Iraq might consider the results of a recent CBS News polling question about Congress’ scrutiny of Bush’s Iraq policy thus far. CBS found that barely one in five Americans (22%) believe Congress is asking too many questions; twice as many (44%) believe it is not asking enough.
Just to round out those numbers: 16% thought the number of questions was about right and another 18% didn’t know. Me, I always like to ask to be on the safe side.
Colin Powell’s presntation was five years ago today. It didn’t convince the UN to support the Iraq invasion. In fact, they pointedly said “non, nein, nyet” (and whatever Chinese for “no” is).
The above results are virtually identical to those found in a Sept. 13-16 CNN/USA Toda/Gallup Poll, which asked a differently worded question. The results show that just 37% of Americans indicate they would support an invasion of Iraq without U.N. support. However, another 46% would support such an invasion if the U.N. gave its endorsement, making the total in support just over eight in 10 (83%).
Of course, the UN wasn’t about to support the invasion, because their chief weapons inspector, Hans Blix, had just finished telling them there were no WMDs in Iraq and that there hadn’t been any for years.
At the time, there was a mid-term election close at hand. One of the constants in discussion is the claim that the Democrats had to look strong on Iraq or suffer at the polls (in fact, only Democrats who voted for the AUMF have lost in general elections since 2002). The conclusion of the report:
Republicans have a decided perceptual advantage over the Democrats on the Iraq issue — 52% say the Republicans in Congress would do a better job handling the issue and 33% say the Democrats, making it one of the strongest Republican issues of those tested. Registered voters who say Iraq is a more important issue to their vote are more likely to say they will vote for the Republican congressional candidate in their district, rather than the Democratic candidate (50% to 45%). But the margin is much smaller than the Republican advantage on the issue might suggest. By comparison, the Democratic Party enjoys a 55% to 33% advantage on the generic ballot among registered voters who say the economy is a more important issue.
Overall, Democrats continue to lead in the generic congressional ballot, 50% to 46% among likely voters, despite the stated importance of the Iraq issue and the considerable Republican advantage on it.
So the next time someone gets that crazed look in their eye and starts blathering on about how “everyone supported the war” back then, point them to the polls and let them know that they may be scared little bunnies, but that there’s a significant portion of the American public that never fell for the story that Hillary Clinton seems to have bought into.