WASHINGTON, Aug. 9 (UPI) -- U.S. support for the war in Iraq and feelings of national security have reached record lows in a USA Today/CNN/Gallup Poll published Tuesday.
Some 34 percent of 1,004 adults asked said the war has made the United States safer, while a record high -- 57 percent -- said it had made the country more of a target.
Conducted by telephone Friday through Sunday after a week in which at least 20 Marines were killed in Iraq, the poll also found 56 percent of respondents who said the war is going badly and 43 percent who feel it is going well.
Terry Madonna, a pollster at Franklin & Marshall College in Lancaster, Pa., said he isn't surprised by the slide in confidence.
"You can't go month after month with no sign of progress and little evidence that Iraqi troops are able to defend themselves without public attitudes toward the war deteriorating," Madonna said. "It has been seven months since the Iraqi elections, and most of the news since then has been bad."
