Even as Congress moved to approve President George W. Bush’s request for continued funding of the Iraq war through the end of this fiscal 2007, a major new poll released Thursday found that public disillusionment with the war has reached record highs.

The New York Times/CBS News poll, the latest in a series of recent surveys that have shown an unexpectedly sharp drop in support both for Bush and the war, came as Congress prepared to vote on a controversial compromise bill that would give Bush some $100 billion more for U.S. military operations in both Iraq and Afghanistan.

The bill, the product of protracted negotiations between the White House and Congress’ Democratic leadership which had hoped to impose a deadline for the withdrawal of U.S. combat troops from Iraq by some time next year, is expected to reach Bush’s desk by this weekend, the start of a week-long holiday recess.

According to the survey, which was conducted May 18-23, more than three out of four citizens (76 percent) now believe the Iraq war is going badly  up from 66 percent just a month ago. A record 47 percent of respondents said the war was going "very badly."

Perhaps even more important, a majority of 52 percent of self-described Republicans say the war is going at least "somewhat" badly  a whopping 16 percent increase from mid-April and a strong indication that pressure on Republican lawmakers, who have remained remarkably loyal to the White House in a series of Iraq-related votes this spring, to abandon the president is increasing.

"It’s the Republican numbers that you have to watch, given the way the White House has governed," according to Steven Kull, director of the University of Maryland’s Program on International Public Attitudes (PIPA). "Ultimately, it’s only the Republicans in Congress who can persuade the president to change course."

Particularly alarming to the White House in the latest poll, as in several others conducted over the past several weeks, is the apparent lack of confidence that Bush’s vaunted "surge" strategy  the addition this spring of some 30,000 troops to the 135,000 already deployed to Iraq  is working.

Only 20 percent of respondents said the surge  which is designed mainly to tamp down sectarian violence in Baghdad  was improving the situation in Iraq. Three in four respondents, including a majority of Republicans, said the additional deployments, which are expected to be completed by mid-June, was either having no impact or was making things worse there.

The new survey also found that 61 percent of Americans now believe that invading Iraq was a mistake, as opposed to only 35 percent who believe hat it was the right thing to do. The 26-percent spread was the widest found in any major national polling on that question.

Less than five weeks ago, respondents were much more evenly split on whether or not the invasion was a mistake. At that time, 51 percent of respondents in a CBS poll said the U.S. should have stayed out of Iraq  a significant decline from 58 percent in January, when the surge was first announced  while 44 percent said it had done the right thing.

Last month’s tighter margin may have reflected hope that the surge, which began in February, might be successful. Indeed, the mainstream media at the time focused much of its coverage on the apparent reduction in sectarian violence in the Iraqi capital which it credited to the administration’s new counterinsurgency strategy.

Since then, however, media attention has focused more on the rising death toll among U.S. soldiers in Iraq, particularly the May 12 attack on a military patrol near Mahmoudiya, in which five soldiers were killed and the subsequent search for three others who were apparently captured by insurgents. In addition, reports that sectarian violence was once again on the rise, including in Baghdad, appears to have dampened the initial optimism.

"We seem to be seeing a reaction to the anticipation that the surge might make things better," said Kull about the latest figures. "The conclusion that this is not really working seems to be consolidating, particularly among Republicans."

Bush himself appeared to recognize that perception during a press conference early Thursday in the White House Rose Garden which he opened by welcoming Congress’ imminent approval of the compromise bill that will provide the war funding he wanted virtually without conditions.

He soon found himself on the defensive, however, repeatedly appealing for patience from the public in permitting the surge strategy to take its course, particularly in light of what he said he anticipated would be a particularly violent summer in the run-up to a scheduled September assessment by the strategy’s author and commander, Gen. David Petraeus.

"It could make August a tough month, because, you see, what (the insurgents) are going to try to do is kill as many innocent people as they can to try to influence the debate here at home," he said.

Democratic lawmakers have vowed to try again to impose a timetable for a troop withdrawal in legislation for 2008 that will be considered this summer and into September, when Petraeus is expected to make his report. The fiscal year begins Oct. 1.

The poll found that 63 percent of respondents agreed with various proposals by the Democratic leadership that combat troops should be withdrawn no later than the end of next year.

At the same time, nearly seven in 10 respondents said Congress should continue funding the war, but only if the Iraqi government meets a number of specific benchmarks set by the U.S. for progress in achieving national reconciliation and in prosecuting the war. The pending appropriations bill includes such benchmarks but permits Bush to continue military operations regardless of whether the benchmarks are met.

Only 30 percent of respondents in the latest poll said they approved of Bush’s performance as president  near his record low of 28 percent in a Newsweek poll released earlier this month and markedly lower than the roughly 35 percent average of all major national polling this year.

Moreover, 72 percent of respondents said they believe that the country is "seriously off on the wrong track," the highest percentage ever recorded for that question since it was first posed by a Times/CBS News poll in nearly 25 years ago.

(Inter Press Service)