Many Americans Still Believe Saddam Had Role In 9/11

Many Americans still believe Saddam had role in 9-11
But support for war starting to waver as body count climbs

http://www.guelphmercury.com/NASApp/...=1050421501457

WASHINGTON (Sep 5, 2006)

It's mind-boggling. But it won't entirely go away.

Five years after al-Qaida terrorists toppled the twin towers of the World Trade Center and hit the Pentagon, a substantial minority of Americans still think Saddam Hussein was behind the attacks on the United States.

It's a testament to how effective President George W. Bush was in rallying support for the invasion of Iraq, even though it turned out that country had nothing to do with the horrors of Sept. 11, 2001.

Public opinion experts also blame the tenacity of the myth on sheer ignorance about the Middle East, less than rigorous media coverage and Democrats who accepted Republican doctrine without scrutiny.

For a time, it seemed treasonous to challenge a war-time president. All that helped to create a climate of acceptance -- at first.

But now, more than three years into Iraq, die-hard war supporters are declining in numbers.

Surveys peg them at about a third of Americans, people who are likely to think Iraq was involved with Sept. 11.

The rest have watched U.S. soldiers die and the war's financial costs soar, while they pay too much for gas and fear the American economy is tanking.

And many say they don't feel safer even though they're paying such a steep price.

They've seen an outpouring of global sympathy turn to widespread mistrust of Bush.

And the president's domestic approval ratings remain so low that many fellow Republicans who want to get re-elected in the mid-term congressional elections this fall are keeping their distance from him.

Civil rights have been challenged by secret wiretaps in the name of catching terrorists. And terrible stories of torture and abuse in the war on terror have shocked the world.

Some think it could take a generation for the United States to regain its international reputation.

"Other countries have figured out how to respond to the terrorists without completely losing their minds," said political analyst Charles Cushman at George Washington University.

"As a nation, we went a little insane for a while."

After the Sept. 11 attacks, Bush appeared at Ground Zero and vowed revenge through a bullhorn.

He was seen as a strong leader, a ballsy commander who finally had the guts to confront a dangerous enemy.

Any president would have moved to clear out the Taliban in Afghanistan and end the sanctuary for Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida terrorists, analysts say.

But that's where it likely would have stopped. The road to Baghdad was never as clear.