A poll surveying U.S. and UK opinion on the Iraq war.
As Britain's Chilcot Inquiry examines the country's participation in the Iraq war, Angus Reid surveyed opinion on both sides of the Atlantic on the conflict (full results here, pdf). Some of the key findings:
62% of Britons and 48% of Americans think the U.S. government made a mistake in launching military action against Iraq in 200355% of Britons and 69% of Americans think removing Saddam Hussein from power was the right thing to do, even if his regime did not possess weapons of mass destruction
One-in-four Britons (24%) believe that the world will look back on the war in Iraq in twenty years and brand it as a defeat for the U.S. and its allies, while 11 per cent claim it will be regarded as a victory. Americans are almost evenly divided in their assessment (18% defeat, 19% victory).
Another interesting finding is people's recollection of where they stood on the war when it began. Angus Reid asked if they supported the war at the time and found that on net, a majority of Americans now claim they were opposed to the war. That certainly doesn't jibe with how I recall public sentiment at the time.
The poll also found that while Americans claim that it was right to remove Saddam Hussein from power, 48 % of respondents told pollsters the war was a mistake vs. 35 % who thought it was not. That seems just a bit contradictory to me.
