Poll: Support Plummeting for Obama's Management of Wars in Afghanistan, Iraq
Numbers coincide with record month for U.S. soldier deaths, WikiLeaks release.
Aug. 3, 2010 -- Public support for President Obama's Afghanistan war policy has plummeted amid a rising U.S. death toll and the unauthorized release of classified military documents, a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll shows.
Support for Obama's management of the war fell to 36 percent, down from 48 percent in a February poll. Now, a record 43 percent also say it was a mistake to go to war there after the terrorist attacks in 2001.
The decline in support contributed to the lowest approval ratings of Obama's presidency. Amid a lengthy recession, more Americans support his handling of the economy (39 percent) than the war.
Even Obama's handling of the war in Iraq received record-low approval, despite a drawdown of 90,000 troops and the planned, on-schedule end of U.S. combat operations there this month.
Only 41 percent of those surveyed Tuesday through Sunday approved of the way Obama is handling his job, his lowest rating in the USA TODAY/Gallup Poll since he took office in January 2009. In Gallup's separate daily tracking poll, his approval was at 45 percent Monday.
The waning support for the Afghanistan war coincides with the deaths of a record 66 U.S. servicemembers in July, up from 60 in June. As the last of 30,000 reinforcements ordered by Obama enter the country, the international military force is encountering heavy Taliban resistance in the southern provinces of Kandahar and Helmand.
"It's hard to find any positive news that would boost public opinion," says Richard Eichenberg of Tufts University, who studies presidential polling and foreign policy.
The drop in support also follows the online posting of more than 76,000 documents by WikiLeaks. Two-thirds of those polled said it was wrong for the website to publish the documents.
Obama said Monday that he'll stick to his war plan: training Afghans to provide their own security, then beginning to withdraw troops in July 2011. The poll showed most Americans agree: 57 percent want a timetable for removing troops, and two-thirds of those say withdrawal should be done gradually.
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