Across Nation, Critics of Bush Express Support for Iraq War

She’s a self-described liberal Democrat from Florida who voted for Al Gore and has little confidence in President Bush. Nevertheless, Jill Hogsed is willing to accept the judgment of a president she dislikes and accept substantial American casualties in a ground assault on Baghdad if that’s what it takes to oust Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.

“I do have to have a little bit of blind faith” in Bush, even though “he’s not as smart as I feel a president needs to be,” said Hogsed, a 42-year-old mother of two young children in Melbourne Beach.

“I don’t remember a time in my lifetime when our country was targeted, and because that’s so frightening, I will support people who have more experience and knowledge than I do,” Hogsed said. She struggled to explain: “I don’t think being a liberal means being a sitting duck.”

The will to war builds slowly in a nation that long thought itself invulnerable. But even as the Bush administration has failed to produce a smoking gun linking Hussein to the Sept. 11 attacks, a substantial majority of Americans--including people who are no fans of Bush and would never describe themselves as hawks--say they would support the president’s use of U.S. ground troops against Iraq.

“Saddam Hussein has to be put to a stop,” Hogsed said. “He totally needs to be gone.”

Interviews with Americans across the nation, as well as a spate of recent polls, indicate that support for military action against Iraq reaches well beyond those conservative Republicans most expected to back Bush. In late August, The Times Poll found that 59% of respondents believe the U.S. should take military action to remove Hussein from power. An even larger majority, 64%, said they would support a ground attack on Iraq if Bush decided to launch one, with 28% opposed.

The tallies indicate that a growing number of political moderates have concluded that there is no alternative to the use of preemptive force to prevent Iraq from acquiring nuclear weapons or using its chemical and biological arsenal.

And Bush’s move to shift the emphasis of his war on terrorism to Iraq from Afghanistan appears to be succeeding.

Asked whether Hussein or Osama bin Laden posed a larger threat to the United States, 40% named Hussein and 27% cited Bin Laden in an NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll released last week. The poll of 1,011 adults was conducted from Sept. 3-5 and had a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

Moreover, 77% of poll respondents considered Hussein a serious threat; 58% thought that the U.S. was in a state of war; 84% agreed that the terrorists responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks have their next attack planned or in the works; and 80% believed the United States should take military action to remove Hussein if it had evidence that the Iraqi leader is building or is about to build nuclear weapons.

What the polls don’t show is the degree to which many Americans are ambivalent and worried, even while voicing confidence that the United States will prevail.

In in-depth interviews, voters who describe themselves as moderates voiced deep concern about the consequences of either inaction or unilateral U.S. military action. They fervently wish for allies in any fight against Iraq, but even without allies, they say America should defend its interests. And many express profound doubts about whether Bush is up to the job, even while they stress their respect for his office.

Yet in the end, these voters express a resolve to do what it takes to defend America and a commitment to what they view as a patriotic duty to support the president in a war. And they express confidence that America will prevail.

Peggy Nelms, 71, remembers the fear and sense of vulnerability inspired by the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. She remembers Adolf Hitler and the revelations about the Holocaust that emerged only after World War II. Now, the retired high school English teacher from Palos Verdes Estates finds herself “thinking of what could have been done, and the appeasement, and the threat of what our president calls ‘nuke-yaler’ weapons,” mocking his mispronunciation of the word.

“The threat of annihilation with nuclear and biological weapons--and the missiles--is so much greater,” Nelms added. “We used to feel protected, and now you’re threatened by Iraq in your own home here in California, because he can ‘getcha!’ ”

Over the course of a long conversation, Nelms explained why she feels “very, very torn” over the administration’s Iraq policy, yet why she believes the U.S. must commit ground troops to resolving the crisis, even if it cannot rally allies to its cause.

“I have a grandson who is registered for the draft who will be 20 in November,” she said. “He’s sleeping in the other room .... On the other hand, my husband was in World War II, my father fought in World War II, everybody went. I do believe [Hussein] is a threat and I do believe he’s arrogant and I do believe he’s making weapons. But the idea of the U.S. invading without provocation is very hard to live with.”

A fiscally conservative Democrat who has voted for some Republicans in her day, Nelms is withering about Bush, whom she deems “a little man.” She wishes he would present “proof rather than saber-rattling,” and she compares Bush’s case on Iraq’s nuclear weapons program unfavorably to the evidence that President Kennedy presented during the Cuban missile crisis. She also has a visceral distrust of politicians in general and the president’s senior advisors in particular.

“I don’t trust [Vice President Dick] Cheney and [Secretary of Defense Donald H.] Rumsfeld. They’re too much, and I do think Bush is their puppet,” she said.

And yet, Nelms said, in her heart, she feels that the Bush administration’s indictment of Hussein is true. “My common sense tells me that he’s evil, and that he’s doing something. And when you see the impact that can be made by [a handful of terrorists] on Sept. 11, it’s scary.”

Nelms doesn’t buy the arguments that a U.S. strike on Iraq would destabilize the Middle East, since the region is already unstable. She thinks other countries eventually will side with the U.S. against Iraq. And, remembering the two-front war against Japan and Germany, the idea of a long American military presence in Kabul and Baghdad doesn’t frighten her.

“I guess it’s my plain old American arrogance,” she said. “We are the best. I think we’ve proved that over and over. We’re vastly educated, we’re vastly experienced, we’re stable--plus, we have resources.”

Count Nelms reluctant but ready for war.

Edward Wheeler, a 54-year-old Democrat in Toledo, Ohio, thinks Bush has already made up his mind to strike Iraq.

“The president is going to get what he wants anyway, so it doesn’t matter what the U.N. says or doesn’t say,” said Wheeler, who recently retired after 30 years painting cars on the assembly line at a Chrysler plant. “He is our president, so you should stand behind him, whatever decision he makes.”

If the accusations that Hussein is building nuclear weapons are true, he must be stopped immediately, Wheeler said. “And I mean, it’s no big secret that we’re not very liked over there to begin with, so what’s a few bombs? If he is doing these things, then he should be taken out. If he wasn’t, why wouldn’t he let the U.N. [inspectors] in there?”

Stanley Wilson, 29, who works at a truck tire plant in central Florida’s Oak City, thinks Bush “is out for the rich man.” But when it comes to the need to fight America’s enemies, with or without allies, Wilson is squarely behind the president.

“You get one terrorist, you got to get all of them and be done with it,” he said. “Take, for example, you got two rattlesnakes in your yard. You want to get both of them or only one? You deal with it, and you don’t have to worry about it coming back.”

As for the lack of allies, he said, “They don’t back us now, don’t call us when you need us.”

Wilson, a Democrat, expects that any war against Iraq would be over in about a month, and he is prepared for American casualties.

“Freedom is not a cheap crop to pick,” he said. “If you’ve got to lay your life down to keep us free, that’s what your job is.”

Lifelong San Francisco Democrat Norman Ross said that he didn’t vote for Bush in 2000 but that he would vote for him now, after watching the president’s speech to the U.N. on Thursday.

“I don’t want my San Francisco blown up. This madman cannot be allowed to have this kind of weapons,” Ross said. “I think the U.N.’s got to be told that ‘If you guys haven’t got the guts to do it, somebody’s got to do it before he blows up half the world.’ ”

Although some of the voters interviewed for this story were unaware of the lack of hard evidence linking Iraq to the Sept. 11 attacks, Ross believes Hussein does bear some responsibility, “in the sense that he’s aided and abetted” terrorists.

“If there was anything he could have done to assist Bin Laden, I’m sure he would have,” he said.

Ross is not troubled by the arguments that preemptive or unilateral U.S. action against Iraq could encourage other nations, such as India or Pakistan, to justify their own preemptive military strikes. But he wants U.S. allies to do their share.

“I especially agree [with Bush] that we should go through the U.N. and build a consensus among friends before we do it,” he said, adding, “I hate the fact that we may have to do it alone, and I resent the countries that won’t help. If we had to end up going this alone to save their butts, too, I’m going to be deeply angry at them.”

Hogsed, the mother from Florida, said that although she doesn’t like the job Bush is doing, she empathizes with him as he faces a monumental decision. She’s glad she doesn’t have the responsibility for making the decision to go to war, but she will support the president if he does.

“I want very much for our country to take the hardest-core stand we can on terrorism,” she said. “I wish I knew the best solution. I don’t. But I would want to be as aggressive and assertive and smart [as possible] and beat the bad guys at their own game, because I think we have to. We have to, to keep what we’ve got ....

“It’s horrible to lose even one life. But as with everything else, you have to look at the big picture. And how many lives will we lose down the road if we don’t act to stop terrorism?

“There are no guarantees. It’s going to be ugly. And there are always horrible repercussions,” Hogsed said. In the end, she hopes and believes, “it will become worth it.”