Many Misinformed About Iraq,
Sept. 11 Attacks
By Frank Davies
Knight Ridder
News Service
WASHINGTON -- A third of the American public
believes U.S. forces found weapons of mass destruction in
Iraq, according to a recent poll. And 22 percent said Iraq
actually used chemical or biological weapons.
Before the war, half of those polled in
a survey said Iraqis were among the 19 hijackers on Sept. 11,
2001.
But such weapons have not been
found in Iraq, and were never used. Most of the Sept. 11
hijackers were from Saudi Arabia. None of them were Iraqis.
These results startled the pollsters
who conducted and analyzed the surveys.
"It's a striking finding," said Steve Kull, director of the
Program on International Policy Attitudes at the University of
Maryland, which asked the weapons questions during a May 14-18
poll of 1,256 respondents.
He added,
"Given the intensive news coverage and high levels of public
attention, this level of misinformation suggests some
Americans may be avoiding having an experience of cognitive
dissonance."
That is, having their beliefs conflict with the facts.
Kull added that the poll's data showed
that the mistaken belief that weapons of mass destruction had
been found "is substantially greater among those who favored
the war."
Pollsters and political
analysts see several reasons for the gaps between facts and
beliefs: the public's short attention span on foreign news,
fragmentary or conflicting media reports that lacked depth or
skepticism, and White House efforts to sell war by
oversimplifying the threat.
Before the
war, the U.S. media often reported as fact the assertions by
the Bush administration that Iraq possessed large stockpiles
of illegal weapons. CBS News in December reported how Bush
officials were "threatening war against Iraq and its weapons
of mass destruction."
During and after
the war, reports of weapons discoveries were often trumpeted
on front pages, while follow-up stories debunking the "smoking
gun" reports received less attention.
"There were so many reports and claims before the war, it was
easy to be confused," said Larry Hugick, chairman of Princeton
Survey Research Associates. "But people expected the worst
from [Iraqi President] Saddam Hussein and made connections
based on the administration's policy."
Bush has described the pre-emptive attack on Iraq as "one
victory in the war on terror that began Sept. 11." Bush
officials also claim that Iraq sheltered and helped al-Qaida
operatives.
"The public is susceptible
to manipulation, and if they hear officials saying there is a
strong connection between Iraq and al-Qaida terrorists, then
they think there must be a connection," said Thomas Mann, a
scholar at the Brookings Institution, a centrist-liberal think
tank.
While Bush critics see an effort
to mislead the public, some analysts say Bush has been
following a long presidential history of framing a foreign
crisis for maximum domestic benefit.
"I'm not going to defend the president, but a policy of
pre-emptive attacks sure looks better after this country has
been hit hard," said Sam Popkin, a polling expert at the
University of California at San Diego who has advised
Democratic candidates.
Polls show
strong support for Bush and the war, although 40 percent in
the May survey found U.S. officials were "misleading" in some
of their justifications for war. A majority, 55 percent, said
they were not misleading.
"People
supported the war for national security reasons and that
shifted to humanitarian reasons when they saw evidence of
Saddam's atrocities," said Republican strategist Frank Luntz.
"There's an assumption these weapons will be found because
this guy was doing so many bad things."
|
.gif){kind=small}
