In a December 6 editorial, The Washington Times cited a six-week-old poll to claim that “Americans are about evenly divided on the question of whether going to war in Iraq in the first place was a good idea,” but the editorial -- saying only that the poll was “released on Nov. 17,” but not that it was conducted in October -- ignored the fact that several more recent polls have reported that significantly more Americans believe the Iraq war is a mistake. In addition, the Times used a poll conducted by the International Republican Institute (IRI) to show that, in contrast to American political and media figures, Iraqis are optimistic about developments in their country. The Times did not tell readers, however, that IRI -- as its name implies -- is an organization with strong Republican ties and that its “face-to-face” survey excluded an entire province of Iraq.

In its editorial, the Times cited a Pew Research Center for the People and the Press study referenced by Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld in a December 5 speech. The Pew study compared the attitudes of various categories of American “opinion leaders” and included the results of a separate "general public survey" that found that 48 percent of respondents thought “using military force against Iraq” was the “right decision,” while 45 thought it was the “wrong decision.” The Times noted that the study was “released on Nov. 17,” but it did not inform readers that the “general public survey” was conducted October 12-24 -- more than six weeks before the Times published its editorial. Nevertheless, the Times made the misleading present-tense assertion that “Americans are about evenly divided” on the wisdom of going to war.

In fact, the outdated Pew survey was conducted during what appears to have been a brief uptick in public opinion about the war. In fact, just a month earlier, a September 16-18 Gallup poll found that when respondents were asked, "[D]o you think the United States made a mistake in sending troops to Iraq, or not?," 59 percent answered “yes,” and 39 percent answered “no.” However, when Gallup asked the same question over the October 21-23 period, 49 percent answered “yes,” and 49 percent answered “no.” That increase in those who agreed with the decision to go to war is not surprising; Iraq's constitutional election occurred on October 15 -- while the Pew survey was in progress. It seems likely that the brief interlude of news reports about Iraqis' approval of their new constitution accounted for the upswing in public support of the decision to invade Iraq.

In the weeks following Iraq's constitutional election, Gallup twice found (subscription required) that most Americans believed going to war was a mistake. A week after its October 21-23 poll found that respondents were split on the issue, Gallup's October 28-30 poll revealed that 54 percent of respondents said the war was a mistake, while 45 percent said it was not. A November 11-13 Gallup poll produced identical results: 54 percent said the war was a mistake; 45 percent said it was not.

Gallup's November 11-13 poll also asked a related question: “All in all, do you think it was worth going to war in Iraq, or not?” Thirty-eight percent of respondents said that it was “worth going to war,” while 60 percent said it was “not worth going to war.” In addition, a November 29-December 1 Time magazine poll found that 44 percent of respondents said the United States was “right” in “going to war with Iraq,” while 50 percent said the United States was “wrong.”

The Times editorial also trumpeted an October 9-11 IRI survey, which, the Times noted, “found that 47 percent of Iraqis thought the country is heading in a positive direction, compared to 37 percent who said it wasn't. Fifty-six percent believe that things will improve in six months' time.” However, the Times did not tell readers that the IRI survey indicates that Iraqi optimism has fallen significantly since the spring. The number of Iraqis who told IRI that the country is headed in the “right direction” peaked in April at 67 percent. It fell to a low of 43 percent in September, then rose slightly to 47 percent in the October 9-11 survey the Times cited. Although the Times wrote that this survey was conducted “last month,” IRI's actual November survey reported that 49 percent of Iraqis believed their country was headed in the “right direction.” Similarly, in April, 79 percent of Iraqis surveyed by IRI felt that “things will be better” in six months. By October, that number -- as noted in the Times editorial -- had fallen to 56 percent. By November, it had fallen to 53 percent.

Moreover, the Times did not inform readers of IRI's political orientation. A November 2 Los Angeles Times article that cited IRI's October poll noted that the organization is “a U.S.-based think tank with origins in the Republican Party.” As Media Matters for America noted in discussing an earlier IRI poll, IRI's board of directors consists entirely of well-connected Republicans. IRI receives public funding through the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and is listed as one of two “core grantees” that receive NED grants for “programs that promote pluralism and free and fair elections.” The other organization under the same category is IRI's apparent Democratic counterpart, the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs, chaired by former Clinton Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright.

Finally, the Times failed to tell readers that “for security reasons,” IRI's “face-to-face” survey excluded the heavily Sunni Al Anbar province.

From The Washington Times' December 6 editorial, "Rumsfeld on Iraq":

The Pew data's general-public findings show that Americans as a whole haven't succumbed to political-class pessimism. A majority of Americans are still optimistic about the future of Iraq. The study, released on Nov. 17, found a 56 percent to 37 percent split in the affirmative on the question of whether the United States will ultimately succeed in forging a free and democratic Iraq. Researchers also found that Americans are about evenly divided on the question of whether going to war in Iraq in the first place was a good idea, with slightly more saying yes (48 percent) than no (45 percent) -- noteworthy given the context of seemingly unrelenting “no's” to both questions from Washington. With the public far more favorably disposed to the war than Washington's current climate would suggest, then, this opens questions about why Washington got so pessimistic in the first place.

Presumably people on the ground in Iraq -- Iraqis themselves and U.S. servicemen -- would know if the facts warranted it. But both are notably more bullish than the politicians and media. The Pew study didn't look at Iraqi opinion, but last month, in a study Mr. Rumsfeld did not cite, the International Republican Institute found that 47 percent of Iraqis think the country is heading in a positive direction, compared to 37 percent who said it wasn't. Fifty-six percent believe that things will improve in six months' time. That judgment is echoed by military leaders, who are optimistic by a margin of 64 percent to 32 percent and are, by many accounts, downright puzzled by the acrimonious finger-pointing in Washington.

Compare all this to the relative pessimism of the intelligenstia and political classes. Sixty-three percent of journalists think the Iraq effort will fail; so do 71 percent of foreign-policy think-tankers and academics. “Jarring” was the word Mr. Rumsfeld used to describe the contrast between what Americans hear and read about Iraq and what Iraqis actually think.