Jim Lobe

WASHINGTON, Dec 28 2004 (IPS) — Despite escalating violence in Iraq over the past year, almost two-thirds of active duty U.S. soldiers approve of President George W Bush’s handling of the situation, and 73 percent believe Washington is ”very” or ”somewhat likely” to succeed in its goals there, found the annual ‘Military Times Poll’, released here Monday.

The results of the poll, which covered a range of issues from party identification to racism and sexual harassment in the armed forces, belied media reports of a gradual disillusionment of the military, especially the army, with its role in the Bush administration’s ”war on terror”, particularly its pacification efforts in Iraq.

On the other hand, no less than 49 percent of respondents said the U.S. military will have to stay in Iraq at least five years to achieve its objectives, and another 38 percent said three-five years. Both estimates are considerably longer than what top administration officials have suggested publicly. Only eight percent said they believed that the job could be done within two years.

Nonetheless, 60 percent of military respondents said Washington was right to have gone to war in Iraq, down from 64 percent who responded to the same question one year ago.

The general public, on the other hand, has grown far more sceptical. A poll by the ‘Washington Post’ and ABC News released last week found that a majority of 56 percent of the public now believe the war was not worth fighting, while approval of Bush’s performance in Iraq dropped from 60 percent a year ago to only 39 percent now.

The Military Times Poll was based on a questionnaire sent during November to 6,000 people drawn at random from the combined subscriber lists of the main independent newspapers of each of the armed services. About two-thirds of those subscribers (4,300) were on active duty and of them, 33 percent (1,423) responded.

In releasing the results, the Times stressed that respondents tended to be older, higher in rank and more career-oriented than members of the military as a whole, although the poll is generally taken as the most accurate barometer of attitudes of the professional soldier ranks.

But the survey did not include members of the National Guard or the reserves, those components of the armed forces that have been particularly restive about deployments to Iraq and whose recruitment and retention rates have suffered over the past two years.

Last week, for example, the Army National Guard announced it had fallen 30 percent below its recruitment goals in the last two months and had decided to offer new incentives, including enlistment bonuses of up to 15,000 dollars.

Nor was the poll disproportionately weighted toward the army or the Marines, the two branches that have been the most affected by the war in Iraq by far. A number of influential Republican and Democratic lawmakers have been arguing for months that the army, in particular, needs to be expanded by at least two divisions to cope with the demands of Iraq and elsewhere.

Asked whether they thought the military was indeed stretched ”too thin to be effective”, 66 said they ”agreed” or ”strongly agreed” – an impressive number but surprisingly less than the 77 percent who took that position one year ago. Three-quarters of respondents opposed a draft, predicting that the quality of service members would decline.

The military has long been seen as more ”conservative” in its politics than the general public as a whole, and the latest survey suggests this continues to be the case, although female members tend to be much closer to the public in their views than the men, according to the Times.

While 63 percent of men said they believed that Washington was right to invade Iraq in March 2003, only 42 percent of women agreed. Similarly, nearly two-thirds of men said they approved of Bush’s handling of the war – 17 percent more than the women who responded. Women were also more pessimistic about the outcome in Iraq than their male counterparts.

Overall, 60 percent of respondents identified their political views as ”Republican”, while only 13 percent said ”Democratic”, four percentage points less than the 17 percent who identified themselves as ”independent”.

Similarly, 46 percent described themselves as ”conservative”, 38 percent as ”moderate”, and only six percent as ”liberal”. That was one percent less than the seven percent who described themselves as ”very conservative”. The ideological breakdowns were virtually unchanged from last year.

Asked who should be punished for the abuses committed by U.S. soldiers at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, two-thirds of respondents said the officers in direct command of the prison should be targeted, while only 21 percent said punishment should also be meted out against ”higher-level military commanders”, 12 percent said ”civilian policymakers at the Pentagon” should be disciplined, and three percent named Bush.

Ten percent of respondents said no one should be punished at all.

That finding was somewhat surprising, both because of the plethora of abuses in Iraq, Afghanistan and the Guantanamo Bay naval base in Cuba that have been publicly disclosed in subsequent reporting and because the ‘Military Times’ newspapers themselves called for Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen Richard Myers, to resign last May after the Abu Ghraib scandal first came to light.

”This was not just a failure of leadership at the local command level”, the Times editors wrote. ”This was failure that ran straight to the top”.

Asked who should be held accountable for the shortages of body armour and armoured vehicles for soldiers in Iraq, most of the survey’s respondents also absolved the administration. While 60 percent blamed Congress and 49 percent the senior military leadership, only 35 percent named the administration.

Respondents also appeared to see the news media more antagonistically than other groups. Asked what kind of opinion each group had of the U.S. military, 44 percent said they thought the media had either ”somewhat” or ”very” unfavourable views. That compared to only six percent of civilians and 23 percent of ”politicians”.

Thirty-seven percent said the media should not publish or broadcast news stories that suggest the war is not going well and that the military itself should decide whether such articles should be printed or broadcast.

Asked if they would re-enlist in the military if they had a choice today, three in four replied affirmatively, citing ”patriotism”, ”job security”, and ”pensions” as reasons why (in declining order of importance). The 20 percent who said no cited ”poor leaders” ”working conditions” and ”pay” as the most important factors.