Poll: Iraq invasion needs allied support

BANGOR – The majority of Mainers believe the United States should oust Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, but not without broad support from U.S. allies, according to a poll conducted for a media consortium including the Bangor Daily News.

Forty-nine percent of those Mainers surveyed said the Bush administration should secure support from its European or Middle Eastern allies before pursuing Saddam’s removal, the case for which President Bush is expected to outline today before the United Nations General Assembly in New York.

In the telephone poll of 513 likely voters, 20 percent said the United States should go it alone, if need be, and 25 percent said the United States should take no action against the Iraqi leader.

The survey was conducted by RKM Research on behalf of WLBZ 2 Bangor, WCSH 6 Portland, the Bangor Daily News and Maine Public Broadcasting.

The poll, which has a 4.3 percent margin of error, randomly surveyed likely Maine voters who were asked under what conditions, if any, the United States should pursue military action to remove Saddam from power.

Dave Lackey, a spokesman for U.S. Sen. Olympia Snowe, said Wednesday that Snowe was pleased with Bush’s efforts to build international support. Snowe considered the U.N. address key to convincing the rest of the world that the Iraqi leader – whom administration officials contend is aggressively assembling nuclear weapons -must go, Lackey said.

Donald Linscott, quartermaster of the Maine Veterans of Foreign Wars, said he, like nearly half of the poll respondents, favored building a coalition before taking any military action in Iraq.

“As powerful as we are, we can’t take on the whole world,” said Linscott, who favored a U.N. Security Council ultimatum requiring the resumption of weapons inspections in Iraq. “I personally don’t want to go in there without support. It doesn’t make sense.”

Ilze Petersons of the Peace and Justice Center of Eastern Maine said she was encouraged by the poll results, which she said run contrary to Bush’s apparent willingness to act unilaterally against Iraq.

“People are not ready to rush to war,” said Petersons, whose group routinely holds anti-war demonstrations outside the Bangor offices of Maine’s senators. “The cost would be too great both economically and in civilian casualties.”

Petersons said the administration instead should concentrate on resuming weapons inspections to ensure the Iraqi leader is not becoming a world threat.

“I think we all agree [Saddam] is a thug,” Petersons said, contending that U.N. sanctions on the country have added to Saddam’s power by weakening the Iraqi people. “But I also believe in democracy and the Iraqi people, not us, should be the ones to get rid of him.”