Poll: Bush doing
'poor' job in Iraq

A pair of new surveys show an American public divided over continuing the conflict in Iraq, with most also saying President Bush is doing a "poor" job of managing the war effort there.

Rassmussen Reports says a bare majority – 51 percent – of those surveyed believe the commander-in-chief isn't handling Iraq well, while just 33 percent give Bush good or excellent marks. Fifteen percent, meanwhile, say he's doing a fair job.

In addition, says Rassmussen, 45 percent believe the president should set a firm deadline for the withdrawal of American fighting forces in Iraq, compared to 41 percent who oppose the idea.

At the same, however, 54 percent of those surveyed believe the people of Iraq are better off now than they were with former dictator Saddam Hussein in power, while 26 percent disagree.

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The new results come on the heels of a Democratic attempt by the Senate to pass a binding resolution calling on Bush to set a firm timetable for withdrawal of U.S. forces. That resolution failed, but a Republican alternative requiring the White House to set 2006 as a "period of significant transition creating conditions for the phased redeployment of United States forces from Iraq," passed by a 79-19 margin.

Also, the survey comes as one of the House's most respected Democrats in terms of military experience and analysis, Rep. John Murtha of Pennsylvania, announced he no longer supports the Iraq war.

"This is not political to me," Murtha said, in comments picked up by USA Today.

Murtha, a 36-year Marine veteran who served in Vietnam and received two Purple Hearts, voted in favor of authorizing force to eject Iraqi troops from Kuwait in 1990 and stood with 80 other House Democrats in providing similar authorization to President Bush in October 2002 to invade Iraq.

Just six months after the war began, however, the New York Times reported Murtha called on Bush to fire Iraq aides, saying he had been misled into voting for the war.

Murtha was criticized yesterday by House Republicans for reversing his stance and publicly calling for a U.S. withdrawal from Iraq.

Rep. Deborah Price of Ohio labeled him "highly irresponsible." And Rep. Steve Buyer, chairman of the House Veteran's Affairs Committee and himself an Army reservist, said his colleague "is conflicted between his ideals as a Marine and as an American and the anti-war crowd that dominates his party."

Rassmussen's poll gauging President Bush's handling of the Iraq war was taken from a telephone survey of 500 likely voters Nov. 16-17. The margin of sampling error for the survey is plus-or-minus 3 percentage points at the midpoint with a 95 percent level of confidence.

The survey regarding the public's view on setting a withdrawal timetable comes from a telephone survey of 1,000 adults, also between Nov. 16-17. It had the same margins of error and level of confidence.