Poll: 49% feel misled on Iraq war rationale
By Mike Leidemann
Advertiser Staff Writer
Almost half of Hawai'i residents think the Bush administration misled the American people about the rationale for the Iraqi war, and most don't think the world is any safer because of it, according to the latest Honolulu Advertiser Hawai'i Poll.
The poll found that 49 percent of those surveyed felt the American people were misled about the reasons for the war. Only 40 percent said they thought they were provided correct information about the reasons for the war, and 11 percent said they did not know whether they were misled.
Fifty-six percent said they didn't believe the war made the world safer for the United States.
"I didn't believe them from the start of the war, and nothing I've seen since then has changed my mind," said Karren Sayre, a 51-year-old mother and entrepreneur living in the Puna district of the Big Island.
"The war didn't have anything to do with terrorism," she said. "They didn't find any weapons of mass destruction, and, if anything, it has made us even more of a target today."
The statewide survey of 605 Hawai'i residents was conducted March 24 to 27 by Ward Research Inc. of Hono-
lulu just as a federal commission held hearings on both the Clinton and Bush administrations' responses to terrorism. At the same time, a former Bush aide charged in a new book that Bush was focused more on toppling Saddam Hussein than fighting terrorists.
The margin of error is 4 percentage points, which means a survey of all Hawai'i residents would not be likely to produce a result more than 4 percentage points above or below the poll results.
Among the findings:
• Women and Neighbor Island residents were the strongest in their opinions. Sixty-nine percent of all Neighbor Island residents and 66 percent of all women, for instance, said the war did not make the world safer.
• Opinions remained relatively constant across all age groups. Fifty-one percent of those under 35 thought the nation was misled; 51 percent of those over 55 felt the same way.
• There were noticeable differences between those who were born and raised in Hawai'i and those who have lived here less than 10 years. Sixty-percent of those who were born here thought the world was not any safer, while only 47 percent of those who were newcomers thought so.
Jerry Price, a 70-year-old retired Army officer living in Kailua, said he didn't agree with the majority of those polled, but wasn't surprised by the results. It's the news media, not the president, that's misleading the American public, he said.
"The American people aren't getting the full story," he said. "The poll came out just like I thought because the American news media is just not fair. How can anybody who knows the full story still not believe that there was a connection between Saddam and these terrorists?"
However, 73-year-old Lily Kim said officials were not telling the public the whole story.
"I don't know why we're sending our boys over there. They're dying for I don't know what. I don't think anything they told us was true," said Kim, a retired cashier from Moanalua Gardens.
Scott Meikle, a golf-course technician from Hawi, Hawai'i, said his opinions have changed in the year since the war began.
"At first, I supported the war and thought it was for a good cause, but over the last year, as all the information came out, as we found out there weren't any weapons of mass destruction, it's become pretty iffy. I think now we should have been going after bin Laden instead of Iraq."
The Hawai'i Poll results largely reflect national polls.
In an NBC News poll taken March 6 to 8, 52 percent of Americans thought President Bush deliberately misled the country about the reasons for entering the war.
A Newsweek magazine poll last week found that 41 percent of Americans think the war "will do more to increase the risk that large numbers of Americans will be killed or injured in a future terrorist attack."
Reach Mike Leidemann at 525-5460 or mleidemann@honoluluadvertiser.com.
