60% Americans say afghan war not worth it: Poll

A record 60 percent of Americans say the war in Afghanistan has not been worth fighting, according to a new poll which coincides with the Obama administration one-year review of its strategy. Public dissatisfaction with the war, now America's longest, has spiked by 7 points just since July. Given its costs vs. its benefits, only 34 percent in the latest ABC News/Washington Post poll say the war's been worth fighting, down by 9 points to a new low, by a sizable margin. Negative views of the war for the first time are at the level of those recorded for the war in Iraq, whose unpopularity dragged George W. Bush to historic lows in approval across his second term. On average from 2005 through 2009, 60 percent called that war not worth fighting, the same number who say so, the poll found. The public's increasingly negative assessment comes after a new strategy, including a surge of U.S. and allied forces, led to the Afghanistan war's bloodiest year. According to icasualties.org, cited by ABC, nearly 500 U.S. soldiers have been killed and 4,481 wounded in 2010, compared with 317 killed and 2,114 wounded in 2009, and 155 killed, 793 wounded in 2008. While opposition to the war has grown, President Barack Obama himself gets more mixed reviews for handling it. This survey, produced for ABC News by Langer Research Associates, finds that 45 percent approve of Obama's work on Afghanistan, matching his low, while 46 percent disapprove, a scant 2 points from the high. Still, that's considerably better than Bush's ratings for handling Iraq in his second term -- on average, 63 percent disapproved of how he did. One apparent reason is Obama's pledge to start withdrawing U.S. forces next summer, ABC News said. Fifty-four percent of Americans support that time frame -- up by 15 points since it was announced a year ago. An additional 27 percent say the withdrawal should begin sooner; just 12 percent say it should start later, down 7 points from a year ago. There are divisions on Afghanistan beyond Obama's approval rating for handling it. Americans split, 48- 48 percent, in support for the troop surge he put in place last year -- notably, almost exactly the same division as found in a poll in Afghanistan itself by ABC News, the BBC, ARD German TV and The Washington Post last month. Americans also divide on whom they trust to handle the situation in Afghanistan: Forty-one percent prefer Obama, while 39 percent choose the Republicans in Congress. That reflects a 6-point drop for Obama since last year, and the first time in his presidency trust has split evenly on this issue. The sharpest decline in views that the war has been worth fighting -- down 14 points since July -- has come among people who also say it's provided a "great deal" of additional security. The ABC News/Washington Post poll was conducted by telephone Dec. 9-12, 2010, among a random national sample of 1,001 adults, including landline and cell-phone-only respondents. Results for the full sample have a 3.5-point error margin.

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