Another good example
Nonetheless, 56 percent of Bush supporters said they believed that most experts currently believe that Iraq had actual WMD, and 57 percent said they thought that the Duelfer Report had itself concluded that Iraq either had WMD (19 percent) or a major WMD program (38 percent).
Only 26 percent of Kerry supporters, by contrast, said they believed that pre-war Iraq had either actual WMD or a WMD program, and only 18 percent said they believed that \ufffdmost experts\ufffd agreed.
Similar results were found with respect to Hussein\ufffds alleged support for al Qaeda, a theory that has been most persistently asserted by Vice president Dick Cheney, but that was thoroughly debunked by the final report of the bipartisan 9/11 Commission earlier this summer.
Seventy-five percent of Bush supporters said they believed that Iraq was providing \ufffdsubstantial\ufffd support to Al Qaeda, with 20 percent asserting that Iraq was directly involved in the 9/11 attacks on New York and the Pentagon. Sixty-three percent of Bush supporters even believed that the clear evidence of such support has actually been found, and 60 percent believe that \ufffdmost experts\ufffd have reached the same conclusion.
By contrast, only 30 percent of Kerry supporters said they believe that such a link existed and that most experts agree.
But large majorities of both Bush and Kerry supporters agree that the administration is saying that Iraq had WMD and was providing substantial support to al Qaeda. In regard to WMD, those majorities have actually grown since last summer, according to PIPA.
On WMD, 82 percent of Bush supporters and 84 percent of Kerry supporters believed that the administration is saying that Iraq either had WMD or major WMD programs. On ties with al Qaeda, 75 percent of Bush supporters and 74 percent of Kerry supporters believe that the administration is saying that Iraq provided substantial support to the terrorist group.
Remarkably, asked whether the U.S. should have gone to war with Iraq if U.S. intelligence had concluded that Baghdad did not have a WMD program and was not providing support to al Qaeda, 58 percent of Bush supporters said no, and 61 percent said they assumed that Bush would also not have gone to war under those circumstances.
In particular, majorities or Bush supporters incorrectly assumed that he supports multilateral approaches to various international issues, including the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) (69 percent), the land mine treaty (72 percent), and the Kyoto Protocol to curb greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to global warming (51 percent).
In August, two thirds of Bush supporters also said they believed that Bush supported the International Criminal Court (ICC), although in the latest poll, that figure dropped to a 53 percent majority, even though Bush explicitly denounced the ICC in the most widely watched nationally televised debate of the campaign in late September.
In all of these cases, majorities of Bush supporters said they favored the positions that they imputed, incorrectly, to Bush.
Large majorities of Kerry supporters, on the other hand, showed they knew both their candidate\ufffds and Bush\ufffds positions on the same issues.
All the evidence says rather directly that Kerry supporters where better informed then Bush supporters. More over, it appears that a significant percentage of Bush supporters do so only because they are missinformed.
What this doesn't answer is the question of how much of this problem is self deception by Bush supporters, how much is failure of Kerry to be specific, how much is deceptive statements by the White House and how much is failure to inform on the part of the Press.
Jay
