I just saw a poll on Fox News that showed 85% of Americans don’t trust Iran to provide an accurate assessment of its nuclear programs. What was Americans’ trust of Iraq in the lead-up to the war? This from a poll in December 2002:

  • By 91% to 7%, [Americans] say the report Iraq submitted to the United Nations is not accurate or complete.
  • Sixty-three percent of Americans say Iraq currently has weapons of mass destruction, while another 28% say Iraq is trying to develop such weapons. Only 4% believe Iraq is not trying to develop these weapons.
  • Among those who believe that Iraq has the weapons or is trying to develop them, 45% express a high degree of confidence that the U.N. inspectors will be able to find them, but 55% say they have little or no confidence the weapons can be found.
  • Among all Americans, 78% expect that Saddam will block U.N. access to a weapons site at some point in the inspection process, while only 19% believe he will provide access to any sites the inspectors want to visit.
  • By 81% to 14%, Americans believe that the only way to disarm Iraq is to remove Saddam from power.

Both CBS News and NBC News headlined the non-story about Naji Sabri, the member of Saddam’s inner circle that said–shocker–Iraq didn’t have WMDs. A reminder to those outraged by that story: We trust Iran more now than we trusted Iraq then.