Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, February 17, 1991                   TAG: 9102170048
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-11   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: NEW YORK                                LENGTH: Medium

WAR SUPPORT STILL HIGH, POLLS SHOW

In explaining why he was rejecting Saddam's peace offer Friday, Bush already had the support of about four out of five Americans who support the war, according to Washington Post-ABC News and USA Today polls taken Thursday night.

A similar 79 percent of the random sample of 772 Americans in the ABC-Post poll released Saturday held Saddam or Iraq responsible for the civilian bombing deaths. Two-thirds said the United States was doing enough to avoid civilian deaths, and 81 percent believed the site was a legitimate military target.

In a Newsweek poll released Saturday, 83 percent of 515 people interviewed Friday said they believed the Iraqi peace initiative was a deception. Eighty-four percent said they want the war to continue until Saddam falls from power. Bush's approval rating was at 84 percent.

Public opinion analysts generally agree the major threat to Bush's approval rating in the war would be the deaths of thousands of U.S. soldiers in a ground war if Americans don't see it as effective.

A New York Times-CBS poll taken Tuesday and Wednesday found that if the ground war brings the deaths of thousands of American soldiers, 42 percent said the war would not be worth its costs.

In a poll of 1,011 adults taken Feb. 8-12 for ABC and the Post, 44 percent said they thought high casualties on the ground would reduce public support for the war. A slim majority said they thought support would either hold steady (34 percent) or go up (17 percent), ABC's pollsters reported.