Reply #15: 85% wasn't high enough? They had to round up to 90

[KurtNYC]

From the body of the Zogby page:

While 85% said the U.S. mission is mainly “to retaliate for Saddam’s role in the 9-11 attacks,” 77% said they also believe the main or a major reason for the war was “to stop Saddam from protecting al Qaeda in Iraq.”

I have to think part of these numbers is a kind of psychological mechanism -- they don't want to think they are there because */Powell/Cheney/Rice/et al hyped non-existant WMD which turned out not to be there. The troops are confronted with their daily struggle; they see friends injured and killed. They may have killed people themselves. With that much suffering and that much personal investment in what is going on, it would be very hard for them to live with the idea that the Iraq-occupation is 1) the result of a chorus lies and 2)a diversion from the search for bin Laden. The stronger the reasons to stay in denial, the more profound the denial becomes.