Support remains firm for Bush in terror war

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Most Americans continue to strongly support President Bush's conduct of the war on terrorism and his decision to go into Iraq, despite rising troop casualties there, polls show.

Most recent surveys find a tightening of the presidential race between Mr. Bush and Democratic challenger John Kerry, as well as a decline in public support for the U.S. presence in Iraq.

But other polls reveal that a majority -- in some cases, strong ones -- support the president's inclusion of Iraq as part of the war against the terrorists who attacked the United States on September 11, 2001.

Americans have become more divided over the Iraq campaign since insurgents launched a violent offensive nearly three weeks ago, but a majority remains behind the president's handling of the war, according to a Time/CNN poll conducted April 8. Among its findings:

• 55 percent approve of the way Mr. Bush has conducted the war on terrorism; 39 percent do not approve.

c53 percent believe that going to war in Iraq to overthrow Saddam Hussein's regime was the right decision; 41 percent do not. Notably, 39 percent of Democratic voters also said it was the right move, along with 52 percent of self-described independents.

• 64 percent believe that al Qaeda "is involved in the attacks by Iraqis against U.S. troops in recent days," echoing Mr. Bush's contention that the war in Iraq is part and parcel of the global war on terrorism, not a diversion.

"This suggests that two-thirds of the country think that the war in Iraq is but one theater in the larger war on terror," Republican pollster Whit Ayres said.

The Time/CNN survey also reveals that many Americans do not take a simplistic view in evaluating how things are going in Iraq for U.S. forces.

When asked to score the U.S. military's actions in Iraq, 26 percent say it has been successful, and 24 percent say it has been unsuccessful; fully 49 percent say the result is somewhere "in between."