| | |  Americas & Beyond | September 2009 
49% Oppose US Justice Department Probe of Bush-era CIA
 Rasmussen Reports
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August 31, 2009
Forty-nine percent (49%) of U.S. voters disagree with the Justice Department’s decision to investigate the treatment and possible torture of terrorists during the Bush administration, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey.
Thirty-six percent (36%) agree with Attorney General Eric Holder’s naming of a veteran prosecutor to probe the CIA’s handling of terrorists under the previous administration. Fifteen percent (15%) are undecided.
In April, while a slight plurality believed the United States did torture terrorism suspects, 58% were opposed to an investigation of how the Bush administration treated those suspects.
Fifty-five percent (55%) of Democrats now support the investigation of the CIA, while 70% of Republicans and 54% of voters not affiliated with either party are opposed.
Fifty-four percent (54%) of all voters, however, believe the investigation of past CIA interrogation practices endangers the national security of the United States. Only 29% say it helps the image of America abroad, and 18% are not sure.
Sizable majorities of Republicans (71%) and unaffiliated voters (63%) worry that the investigation will hurt national security. The plurality (45%) of Democrats say the probe is good for America’s image overseas.
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Sixty-five percent (65%) of voters say it is at least somewhat likely that waterboarding and other harsh interrogation techniques helped secure valuable intelligence information, a six-point increase from May. Forty-four percent (44%) say it’s very likely.
Nineteen percent (19%) say it is not very likely that those techniques helped secure valuable intelligence information, and another seven percent (7%) say it’s not at all likely that they did so.
In May, the CIA was viewed favorably by 63% and unfavorably by 24%.
Thirty-five percent (35%) now have a favorable opinion of Holder, the former judge and U.S. attorney chosen by President Obama to head the Justice Department. Thirty-nine percent (39%) view him unfavorably. Those with a very unfavorable view outnumber those with a very favorable opinion by nearly two-to-one. But 26% don’t know enough about Holder to have an opinion of him one way or the other.
Still, that marks a notable increase in name recognition from late November when Obama first nominated Holder. At that time, 54% had no opinion of the attorney general-designate. Twenty-three percent (23%) had a favorable opinion, while the identical number (23%) viewed him unfavorably.
Holder on Monday appointed prosecutor John Durham to investigate allegations of interrogator abuse contained in a newly released internal CIA inspector general’s report.
Seventy-two percent (72%) of voters say they have been following news reports about the Justice Department’s decision to investigate the CIA at least somewhat closely. Thirty-six percent (36%) are following very closely. Five percent (5%) are not following the news at all.
Fifty-eight percent (58%) of voters said in April that the Obama administration’s release of CIA memos about the harsh interrogation methods used on terrorism suspects endangered the national security of the United States. But 28% said the release of the memos helped the nation’s image abroad.
At that time, 37% also said the U.S. legal system worries too much about protecting individual rights when national security is at stake. But 21% said the legal system is too concerned about protecting national security. Thirty-three percent (33%) felt the balance between the two was about right.
Fifty-five percent (55%) of voters now oppose Obama’s decision to close the prison camp for terrorism suspects at Guantanamo Naval Base in Cuba. Seventy-five percent (75%) worry that dangerous terrorists will be set free if the Guantanamo prison camp is closed and some prisoners are transferred to other countries.
Scott Rasmussen, president of Rasmussen Reports, has been an independent pollster for more than a decade.
This national telephone survey of 1,000 Likely Voters was conducted by Rasmussen Reports August 25-26, 2009. The margin of sampling error for the survey is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. |
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