Despite a firestorm of accusations that the Bush Administration falsified evidence of Iraq’s nuclear capabilities last year, almost three-quarters of Wisconsinites said they think President Bush believed there were weapons in Iraq when he decided to go to war.

According to a recent Badger Poll, 73 percent of Wisconsin residents surveyed said they believe Bush thought the intelligence reporting Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction was credible. Only 22 percent thought Bush lied about the existence of nuclear weapons in Iraq.

A majority of state residents also believe the weapons will eventually be found. Of those surveyed, 53 percent of Wisconsinites said they believe no weapons have been uncovered as of yet because Iraqis hid them.

President Bush used the existence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq as a reason to topple Saddam’s regime. However, since the war began in March 2003, no nuclear arms have been uncovered in Iraq by American troops.

Bush defended his decision to go into Iraq when visiting Wisconsin nearly a week ago, claiming in a speech that U.S. decision-makers believed Saddam posed a credible threat to U.S. security.

“I looked at intelligence from Iraq and saw a threat,” Bush said. “The U.S. Congress looked at the same intelligence, and the members of Congress saw a threat. The United Nations Security Council looked at the intelligence, and it saw a threat.

Jon Pevehouse, assistant UW political science professor, said he is not surprised by the high number of Wisconsin residents who believe the President did not knowingly mislead the American public about WMDs in Iraq. However, he said the majority of Wisconsinites who still believe U.S. forces will find the weapons is a bit shocking.

“I think there were high-ranking officials who believed [the weapons] were there. But I am surprised by the high number of people that still think we are going to find weapons there,” Pevehouse said, adding intelligence records now seem to indicate Iraq does not have nuclear capabilities.

Continued support for the president’s decision to go to war has remained high despite rising violence in Iraq and U.S. forces’ failure to uncover any nuclear weapons in the country. Pevehouse said that unlike Vietnam, where failure on the warfront brought a barrage of criticism about the legitimacy of going to war in the first place, Americans are remaining supportive of the administration’s decision to oust Saddam although questions about U.S. foreign policy in Iraq remain.

“People seem to be distinguishing between whether we should have gone in and whether are we doing the right thing,” he said.

A minority of residents rated Bush’s overall performance rating as excellent or good. Forty-six percent of Wisconsinites rated the President as such, down more than 20 percentage points from Bush’s record approval rating of 69 percent at the Iraq war’s beginning last spring.

Continued approval of Bush’s job in Iraq will be crucial for him to win re-election this fall, Pevehouse said, especially since Bush will be running as a “wartime president.” However, the window of opportunity for Bush to secure public trust in his policies toward Iraq could be running short as violence in the Middle East may reach a boiling point in the next month.

“The next two or three weeks are going to be very key,” Pevehouse said. “We could wake up one morning and find 100 dead marines, and things could start to get really bad, really quickly.”