Washington – About half the people in a nationwide survey consider President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney unreliable sources of information about conditions in Iraq, according to a poll released Tuesday.
Instead, the Gallup Poll found that Americans look to other U.S. officials for accurate information about the four-year conflict, including two top military officers. Two Cabinet officers, five 2008 presidential candidates and the three living former presidents were considered more reliable sources.
Bush and Cheney, as well as leaders of the Democratic-led Congress, ranked among the lowest of 16 present and past U.S. officials cited in the survey about reliable sources of information.
The Gallup survey found:
49 percent of respondents said Bush – and 53 percent said Cheney – were “not too reliable” or “not at all reliable” as a “source of accurate information about current conditions in Iraq.”
42 percent felt that way about House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and 35 percent felt that way about Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev.
Army Gen. David Petraeus, the commanding U.S. general in Iraq, won highest marks, with 80 percent of respondents calling him a reliable source of information. Marine Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was deemed reliable by 67 percent of respondents.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice were considered reliable sources by 67 percent and 66 percent of survey respondents, respectively.
Five White House aspirants were considered reliable sources by a higher percentage of respondents than the president and vice president.
Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., a former Navy combat pilot and prisoner of war during the Vietnam War, led the 2008 pack, with 65 percent of those surveyed deeming him “very” or “somewhat” reliable on conditions in Iraq. He was followed by Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., (58 percent); Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., (57 percent), former Sen. John Edwards, D-N.C., (57 percent); and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, a Republican, (52 percent).
The telephone survey of 1,007 adults, conducted April 23-26, had a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.
