The overwhelming majority of Americans are willing to risk war to hunt down and punish those behind a series of attacks on the Pentagon and World Trade Center, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll released Wednesday.
By an equally lop-sided margin, the public favors taking military action “directly against the countries that shelter terrorist groups – a somber warning to Afghanistan and other nations suspected of harboring terrorists,” said the Washington Post newspaper.
Slightly more than four in 10 – 43 percent – said the government had done "all it reasonably could do" to prevent the attacks, but 44 percent said officials "could have done more."
A majority expressed concern that there will be more terrorist attacks to come in this country – although fewer worry that their own communities will be targeted.
A day filled with horrific news and nightmarish images left Americans in a determined and warlike mood, ready to strike swift and hard against a yet-unidentified enemy.
Nine in 10 – 94 percent – supported taking military action against the groups or nations responsible for the attacks. More than eight in 10 favored military strikes even if they led to war.
"The world is going to judge us now on what we do and how we react," Guy Torrey, 59, a real estate broker in Reno, Nevada, told the paper.
"And I think we should act a lot heavier than we have in the past. We're going to have to live with the history, so we need to get it right. But still, this is retribution day. If it doesn't come, it's over for us as a world power."
The survey also found that 84 percent supported taking military action against any countries that assisted or harbored the terrorists, a view echoed by President Bush in his speech to the nation that the United States "will make no distinction between the terrorists who committed these acts and those who harbor them."
A total of 608 randomly selected adults were interviewed Tuesday night for this survey, said the paper.
Margin of sampling error is plus or minus 4 percentage points.
© 2001 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
