As the phrases suggest, the ways to get at the issue are varied, and -- not surprisingly -- different ways beget different answers. While only 11% of Americans believe the administration was mostly lying, 63% believe it was at least stretching the truth -- a range of opinion that could leave readers with conflicting ideas as to what the public really thinks.
Why the differences in polls? Most likely question wording. The timing of the polls varies, with the earliest conducted July 8-9 and the latest July 18-20. However, both Gallup and the Newsweek polls found little change over a several-week time span, with each poll repeating the question it had asked earlier, suggesting differences in measures of credibility do not result from timing of the interviews. Also, while the question context varies from poll to poll, in no poll was there a series of questions prior to the credibility question that would seem to exert much impact on how people might rate Bush and his administration on that issue.
Similar Results From Three Polls
Three sets of polls -- CNN/USA Today/Gallup, CNN/TIME, and Newsweek -- all arrive at similar conclusions, although they differ in the way they ask their questions.
- CNN/USA Today/Gallup: "Do you think the Bush administration deliberately misled the American public about whether Iraq has weapons of mass destruction, or not?" (Thirty-nine percent said "deliberately misled.")
- CNN/TIME: "As you may know, the White House has admitted that President Bush was incorrect when he said in his State of the Union Address there was evidence that Iraq was trying to obtain nuclear materials from Africa. Do you think the Bush Administration deliberately misled the public about Iraq having nuclear materials in order to gain support for the war, or don't you feel that way?" (Forty-one percent said "deliberately misled.")
- Newsweek: "Before the Iraq war, the Bush administration said it had intelligence reports indicating that Iraq was hiding banned chemical or biological weapons from UN weapons inspectors. So far, however, no such banned weapons have been found in Iraq. Do you think the Bush administration -- purposely misled the public about evidence that Iraq had banned weapons in order to build support for the war?" (Thirty-eight percent said "purposely misled.")
Note that all three polls produce results showing about 4 in 10 Americans believe the administration either "purposely" or "deliberately" misled the public on the issue. What is fascinating is that similar results were found despite quite different wording.
The CNN/USA Today/Gallup wording is the simplest, giving no information to respondents and no reason for the possible deception.
The CNN/TIME question, by contrast, informs respondents that the Bush administration admitted to giving out incorrect information, and the question gives a reason why the administration might have deliberately misled the public: "to gain support for the war."
The Newsweek question also gives information to respondents (that no banned weapons had been found despite Bush administration assertions before the war that Iraq was hiding them), and gives a reason for the possible deception: "to build support for the war."
One might have expected that the CNN/TIME and the Newsweek questions -- which gave respondents information about the problem and a reason why the Bush administration could have wanted to mislead the public -- would elicit more skeptical responses than the simple question in the CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll. That all three polls produced similar responses suggests a relatively firm public response.
Other Results from ABC/WP, CBS News and PIPA/Knowledge Networks
Three other polls suggested a much more skeptical -- or less skeptical public -- depending on which responses are combined:
- ABC/Washington Post (ABC/WP): "Before the war began, do you think the Bush administration did or did not intentionally exaggerate its evidence that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, such as biological or chemical weapons?" (Fifty percent said "did intentionally exaggerate.")
- CBS News: "When presenting what they knew about the existence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq before the war, do you think the members of the Bush administration were telling everything they knew, most of what they knew, hiding important elements of what they knew, or mostly lying?" (Eleven percent said "mostly lying," and 45% said "hiding important elements.")
- Program on International Policy Attitudes/Knowledge Networks (PIPA/KN): "Is it your impression that when the U.S. government presented evidence of Iraq having weapons of mass destruction to justify going to war with Iraq it was presenting evidence it knew was false, stretching the truth but not making false statements, being fully truthful?" (Sixteen percent said "false evidence," 47% said "stretching the truth.")
The words "intentionally exaggerate" (ABC/WP) may be less condemning than "deliberately misled," and thus may explain why it elicits 10 percentage points more support than the other wording.
The CBS News question, finding 45% who say the administration is hiding information, added to the 11% who say it was mostly lying, suggests that 56% of the public is skeptical about the administration's credibility.
Finally, the PIPA/KN poll shows up to 63% of Americans with a skeptical attitude, if "stretching the truth" is added to "false evidence."
Pattern of Results
Relatively few Americans believe the president was outright lying about the existence of WMD in Iraq -- 11% if the "L" word is use, but 16% if "lying" is softened by saying "presenting evidence it knew was false."
But up to 4 in 10 Americans believe there was something "deliberately" or "purposely" misleading or deceptive about pre-war statements.
If the deception is softened to "exaggerating" or "stretching the truth" or "hiding" information, then clear majorities would buy into that.
Joe Carroll provided the research support for this column.