Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

A Small Boost for Bush

Views of Iraq Improve

June 22, 2006

Americans are now more positive about the way things are going in Iraq than in the past few months, following the killing of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and President Bush's brief visit to the country. Optimism about the U.S. achieving its goals in Iraq, which sagged in the spring, has rebounded. But this has resulted in only a slight boost in the president's overall approval ratings, and last week's congressional debate failed to engage the public or improve the GOP's standing on the issue.

The latest national survey by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, conducted June 14-19 among 1,501 Americans finds that Bush's job approval stands at 36%, compared with 33% in April. The president has made modest gains on terrorism and the war in Iraq. But on both issues - as well as in views of his overall job performance - Bush's ratings remain lower now than they were in February.

The survey also finds:

A 53% majority now says the military effort in Iraq is going at least fairly well, up from 47% in April and an all-time low of 43% in March. The public also sees progress on specific objectives in the war, including defeating the insurgents militarily and training Iraqi security forces. Nearly half of Americans (48%) now say that the U.S. is making progress in defeating the insurgents militarily, up from 36% in March.

Republican efforts to raise the political profile of the Iraq war have drawn little public attention. About four-in-ten Americans (38%) say they heard nothing at all about recent congressional debates on how to handle the situation in Iraq; another 44% say they heard little about the debates. By 34%-28%, more Americans think the Democratic Party, not the Republican Party, can do a better job making wise decisions about what to do in Iraq.

Baseline attitudes toward the war have not changed. A narrow majority (52%) continues to favor the establishment of a timetable for withdrawing U.S. forces from Iraq. This is no different than in April, when 53% favored a timetable. The public also remains divided over whether the U.S. should "bring its troops home as soon as possible" (45%) or "keep military troops in Iraq until the situation has stabilized" (50%).

Read the full report at people-press.org