{"id":120,"date":"2004-04-26T08:18:52","date_gmt":"2004-04-26T08:18:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.docbug.com\/blog\/archives\/120"},"modified":"2004-04-26T08:18:52","modified_gmt":"2004-04-26T08:18:52","slug":"people-still-believe-in-iraq-al-qaeda-links-wmd-and-santa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.docbug.com\/blog\/archives\/120","title":{"rendered":"People still believe in Iraq\/al Qaeda links, WMD, and Santa"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Before the war I honestly thought Iraq had WMD, but eventually I had to face facts. My hunch that if Saddam had nothing to hide he&#8217;d have been more forthcoming was wrong. My hunch that Bush wasn&#8217;t so blindingly stupid as to bluff both the UN and Congress without solid evidence was also wrong. I&#8217;ve also got some nasty suspicions about why Santa Clause always looked like Dad when I snuck down Christmas Eve to spy.<\/p>\n<p>Anyway, it looks like lots of Americans are still in denial. The <a href=\"http:\/\/www.pipa.org\/\">Program on International Policy Attitudes<\/a> at the University of Maryland and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.knowledgenetworks.com\/index2.html\">Knowledge Networks<\/a> have just released their latest <a href=\"http:\/\/www.pipa.org\/OnlineReports\/Iraq\/IraqReport4_22_04.pdf\">report<\/a> on American beliefs about pre-war Iraq \u2014 the results haven&#8217;t changed much since they first started running their surveys before the war started. (PIPA&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.pipa.org\/OnlineReports\/Iraq\/IraqPressRelease4_22_04.pdf\">press release<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.pipa.org\/OnlineReports\/Iraq\/IraqQuestionnaire4_22_04.pdf\">questionnaire<\/a> are also available, as is my summary of their <a href=\"http:\/\/docbug.com\/blog\/archives\/000047.html\">October report<\/a>.)<\/p>\n<p>The quick summary:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>57% still think that before the war Iraq was providing substantial support to al Qaeda, including 20% who believe that Iraq was directly involved in the September 11 attacks.<\/li>\n<li>45% believe that evidence that Iraq was supporting al Qaeda has been found.<\/li>\n<li>60% believe that just before the war Iraq either had weapons of mass destruction (38%) or a major program for developing them (22%).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Where are these people getting these ideas? Oh wait, here it is:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>56% percent said it was their impression that the Bush administration is claiming the US has found clear evidence that Saddam Hussein was working closely with al Qaeda, and 38% perceived the administration saying the US has found clear evidence that just before the war, Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>It&#8217;s good to see they got <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bushoniraq.com\/\">at least one question right<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Before the war I honestly thought Iraq had WMD, but eventually I had to face facts. My hunch that if Saddam had nothing to hide he&#8217;d have been more forthcoming was wrong. My hunch that Bush wasn&#8217;t so blindingly stupid as to bluff both the UN and Congress without solid evidence was also wrong. I&#8217;ve also got some nasty suspicions about why Santa Clause always looked like Dad when I snuck down Christmas Eve to spy.<\/p>\n<p>Anyway, it looks like lots of Americans are still in denial. The <a href=\"http:\/\/www.pipa.org\/\">Program on International Policy Attitudes<\/a> at the University of Maryland and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.knowledgenetworks.com\/index2.html\">Knowledge Networks<\/a> have just released their latest <a href=\"http:\/\/www.pipa.org\/OnlineReports\/Iraq\/IraqReport4_22_04.pdf\">report<\/a> on American beliefs about pre-war Iraq \u2014 the results haven&#8217;t changed much since they first started running their surveys before the war started. (PIPA&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.pipa.org\/OnlineReports\/Iraq\/IraqPressRelease4_22_04.pdf\">press release<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.pipa.org\/OnlineReports\/Iraq\/IraqQuestionnaire4_22_04.pdf\">questionnaire<\/a> are also available, as is my summary of their <a href=\"http:\/\/docbug.com\/blog\/archives\/000047.html\">October report<\/a>.)<\/p>\n<p>The quick summary:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>57% still think that before the war Iraq was providing substantial support to al Qaeda, including 20% who believe that Iraq was directly involved in the September 11 attacks.<\/li>\n<li>45% believe that evidence that Iraq was supporting al Qaeda has been found.<\/li>\n<li>60% believe that just before the war Iraq either had weapons of mass destruction (38%) or a major program for developing them (22%).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Where are these people getting these ideas? Oh wait, here it is:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>56% percent said it was their impression that the Bush administration is claiming the US has found clear evidence that Saddam Hussein was working closely with al Qaeda, and 38% perceived the administration saying the US has found clear evidence that just before the war, Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>It&#8217;s good to see they got <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bushoniraq.com\/\">at least one question right<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-120","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.docbug.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.docbug.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.docbug.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.docbug.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.docbug.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=120"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.docbug.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.docbug.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=120"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.docbug.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=120"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.docbug.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=120"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}