Fear, false beliefs bolster U.S. public support for war in Iraq: Pew

A man participates in a demonstration against war on Iraq outside the White House in Washington, D.C., the United States, on June 21, 2014. (Xinhua/Yin Bogu)

Twenty years later, debate continues about whether the administration was the victim of flawed intelligence, or whether the U.S. administration then deliberately misled the public.

NEW YORK, March 16 (Xinhua) -- Two decades after the U.S. war began in Iraq, a review of Pew Research Center surveys on the war shows that support for U.S. military action was built, at least in part, on a foundation of falsehoods.

In the months leading up to the war, majorities of between 55 percent and 68 percent said they favored taking military action to end Saddam Hussein's rule in Iraq. No more than about a third opposed military action, according to the center in its report on Tuesday.

However, as Americans looked back on the war four years ago, 62 percent said it was not worth fighting. Majorities of military veterans, including those who served in Iraq or Afghanistan, came to the same conclusion.

"As numerous investigations by independent and governmental commissions subsequently found, there was no factual basis for either of these assertions" to carry out the war, said the report.

Twenty years later, debate continues about whether the administration was the victim of flawed intelligence, or whether the U.S. administration then deliberately misled the public, it noted.

On March 19, 2003, the United States launched a major military invasion of Iraq, marking the second time it fought a war in that country in a little more than a decade. It was the start of an eight-year conflict that resulted in the deaths of more than 4,000 U.S. service members and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis.