Fully 96 percent of those asked said the Democratic Party-controlled Congress was either poor (71.3 percent) or fair (24.7 percent) on handling the war in Iraq. Some 2.5 percent said the legislators were "good" and 0.3 percent rated them "excellent."

Bush's ratings nearly glow by comparison but were also low with 55.2 percent giving the Republican president a "poor" grade on Iraq and 15.8 percent rating him "fair." He was seen as "good" on Iraq by 21.8 percent of respondents and "excellent" by 6.6 percent.

A slim plurality -- not far outside the poll's 1.2 percentage-point margin of error -- said they had more confidence in the Republican Party to deal with Iraq. While 41.2 percent gave the GOP as an answer, 38 percent said the Democrats and 19.1 percent said "neither."

The Zogby interactive poll was conducted Sept. 7-10 with 7,081 U.S. residents responding.