TEHRAN (Tasnim) – A recent Axios/Ipsos poll revealed that two-thirds of Americans supported the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, but 61% now believe it was the wrong decision.
Only 26% of Democrats and 58% of Republicans still think the war was the right decision. The poll, which was conducted last week among 1,018 Americans over 18 years old, also found that 67% of Americans do not believe the war made the US any safer.
Although about three-quarters of Americans said they want the US to remain a global leader, only 54% believe Washington’s overall focus on national defense and homeland security in the last two decades has made the US safer.
Much of the initial support for the war was based on false claims by the administration of then-US president George W. Bush and the media. The invasion and subsequent occupation of Iraq ended up leading to the deaths of at least 210,000 civilians, according to the Iraq Body Count project. Modern-day Iraq is far from the paradise its people were promised when Bush infamously declared “Mission Accomplished” back in 2003.
The invasion plunged the country into instability, making it a breeding ground for terrorists. After the partial US pullout in 2011, much of Iraq’s northern reaches fell under the control of the Daesh (ISIS or ISIL) terror group. Today, some 2,500 US troops are still stationed in Iraq, three years after the Iraqi government ordered them to leave. Pentagon data from 2019 shows that the total losses of American servicemen during the entire Iraqi war amounted to 4,487 people.
About 44% of respondents to the poll are still unsure who was ‘right’ about the war – those who ‘totally’ supported it, those who opposed it from the start, or those who changed their minds eventually.
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