Poll results released by the Program on International Policy Attitudes Wednesday showed that a growing majority of Americans still feel threatened by terrorism, despite efforts to fight it in Iraq.
The public overwhelmingly said the war has not reduced the threat of terrorism or helped stabilize the Middle East. About 70 percent agree that, “the threat of terrorism has been significantly reduced by the war in Iraq.” This figure is up from the 47 percent that said this in the Gallup International polls in April.
The poll also found that about 60 percent of those surveyed nationwide said the Iraq reconstruction process and the creation of an Iraqi government is moving too slowly. Seven in 10 people believe the United Nations should “take the lead to work with Iraqis to write a new constitution and build a new democratic government.” This percentage increased from half the respondents in April.
“Impatience with the process of Iraq reconstruction seems to be creating increasingly robust support for putting the operation under the U.N.,” Steven Kull, director of PIPA, said in a statement.
However, people generally believe that the United States should stay committed to building democracy in Iraq, and troops should not withdraw until a government is elected. A significant majority added that they are ready to accept an election that could bring an Iraqi government that is not agreeable with the United States.
According to the poll, 78 percent of Americans agreed that “at some point the United States will need to let the Iraqi people decide who should lead their government, even if they elect a leader who is unfriendly to the United States.”
Their priorities in the war on terrorism and in Iraq are protection of human-rights laws and pursuing Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda.
However, President Bush and administration officials have a different view. They have frequently said ousting Saddam Hussein and other efforts in Iraq are central to winning the fight against terrorism. But the constant attacks on U.S. troops in the region and additional terrorist attacks in Turkey and Saudi Arabia in recent weeks still leave fear in Americans.
“I think any kind of threat is very enduring for people,” Burr Eichelman, University of Wisconsin professor of psychiatry, said. “They carry this with them over long periods of time. It isn’t biologically surprising.”
Eichelman said that threats of terrorism do not disappear entirely, but people eventually learn to live with it.
“[People] can not allow it to control them. They must go about business as usual in a prudent way … not overanxious,” he added.
Eichelman said that people who feel threatened can achieve this state of mind through time, reconfiguration of politics and political threats and/or when no new terrorists groups replace the current ones.
Knowledge Networks conducted the poll from Nov. 21-30 with a margin of sampling error of plus or minus four percentage points. About 712 adults randomly selected were surveyed.
