US public believes Bush/Cheney lies: "They believe in the cause as articulated by the vice president, Dick Cheney, this week in his speech at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri, where Winston Churchill delivered his "iron curtain" oration. "You and I are living in such a time" of the "gravest of threats", said Cheney. Once again, he explained the motive for the Iraq war, implicitly conflating Saddam Hussein with al-Qaida and oblivious to the failure to discover WMD.

""His regime cultivated ties to terror," he said, "and had built, possessed and used weapons of mass destruction." And Saddam "would still be in power", he continued, coming to the point of his allegory, if John Kerry, cast as Neville Chamberlain to Bush's Churchill, had had his way.

"These misperceptions are pillars of Bush's support, according to a study by the University of Maryland: 57 % of those surveyed 'believe that before the war Iraq was providing substantial support to al-Qaida', and 45% 'believe that evidence that Iraq was supporting al-Qaida has been found'. Moreover, 65% believe that 'experts' have confirmed that Iraq had WMD.

"Among those who perceived experts as saying that Iraq had WMD, 72% said they would vote for Bush and 23% for Kerry. Among those who perceived experts as saying that Iraq had supported al-Qaida, 62% said they would vote for Bush and 36% for Kerry. The reason given by respondents for their views was that they had heard these claims from the Bush administration."

US public believes Bush/Cheney lies: "They believe in the cause as articulated by the vice president, Dick Cheney, this week in his speech at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri, where Winston Churchill delivered his "iron curtain" oration. "You and I are living in such a time" of the "gravest of threats", said Cheney. Once again, he explained the motive for the Iraq war, implicitly conflating Saddam Hussein with al-Qaida and oblivious to the failure to discover WMD.

""His regime cultivated ties to terror," he said, "and had built, possessed and used weapons of mass destruction." And Saddam "would still be in power", he continued, coming to the point of his allegory, if John Kerry, cast as Neville Chamberlain to Bush's Churchill, had had his way.

"These misperceptions are pillars of Bush's support, according to a study by the University of Maryland: 57 % of those surveyed 'believe that before the war Iraq was providing substantial support to al-Qaida', and 45% 'believe that evidence that Iraq was supporting al-Qaida has been found'. Moreover, 65% believe that 'experts' have confirmed that Iraq had WMD.

"Among those who perceived experts as saying that Iraq had WMD, 72% said they would vote for Bush and 23% for Kerry. Among those who perceived experts as saying that Iraq had supported al-Qaida, 62% said they would vote for Bush and 36% for Kerry. The reason given by respondents for their views was that they had heard these claims from the Bush administration."