Iraq, 9/11, Al Qaeda and Weapons of Mass Destruction:
What the Public Believes Now, According to Latest Harris Poll

If President George Bush is re-elected it will be because he succeeded in persuading most people that his sense of what happened in Iraq, and why, is more accurate than that of his critics.

Large majorities of the public accept many of the president’s positions:

• 90 percent of U.S. adults believe that Saddam Hussein would have made weapons of mass destruction if he could have.
• 76 percent believe that the Iraqis are better off now than they were under Saddam Hussein.
• 63 percent believe that history will give the U.S. credit for bringing freedom and democracy to Iraq.
• 63 percent believe that Iraq, under Saddam Hussein, was a serious threat to U.S. security.
• 62 percent believe that Saddam Hussein had strong links to Al Qaeda (a claim which Vice President Cheney has made more than President Bush).

More surprising perhaps are the large numbers (albeit not majorities) who believe claims which the president has not made, and which virtually no experts believe to be true:

• 41 percent believe that Saddam Hussein helped plan and support the hijackers who attacked the U.S. on September 11, 2001.
• 38 percent believe that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction when the U.S. invaded.
• 37 percent actually believe that several of the hijackers who attacked the U.S. on September 11 were Iraqis.

Another interesting finding is that only 45 percent believe that Saddam Hussein was prevented from developing weapons of mass destruction by the U.N. weapons inspectors, something which most reports now believe to be true.

These are some of the results of a nationwide Harris Poll of 1,016 U.S. adults surveyed by telephone by Harris Interactive® between October 14 and 17, 2004.

The poll finds large differences between the beliefs of Bush and Kerry supporters. But the striking finding is how many Kerry supporters (usually sizable minorities) believe the president’s views are accurate; for example, 39 percent of Kerry supporters believe history will credit the U.S. for bringing freedom and democracy to Iraq. Even more striking, fully 31 percent of Kerry supporters believe several of the hijackers who attacked the U.S. on 9/11 were Iraqis, and 37 percent believe that Saddam Hussein had strong links to Al Qaeda.

"Do you believe that the following statements are true or not true?"

(Total percentages saying "true")

Base: All Adults

The Harris Poll^® was conducted by telephone within the United States between October 14 and 17, 2004 among a nationwide cross section of 1,016 adults (ages 18 and over) of whom 405 prefer George W. Bush and 362 prefer John Kerry in the 2004 Presidential Election. Figures for age, sex, race, education, number of adults, number of voice/telephone lines in the household, region and size of place were weighted where necessary to align them with their actual proportions in the population.

In theory, with a probability sample of this size, one can say with 95 percent certainty that the results for the total sample have a statistical precision of plus or minus 3 percentage points of what they would be if the entire U.S. adult population had been polled with complete accuracy. Statistical precision for the smaller samples is plus or minus 5 percentage points. Unfortunately, there are several other possible sources of error in all polls or surveys that are probably more serious than theoretical calculations of sampling error. They include refusals to be interviewed (nonresponse), question wording and question order, interviewer bias, weighting by demographic control data and screening (e.g., for likely voters). It is impossible to quantify the errors that may result from these factors.

J22300a

Q485