Success Matters: Casualty Sensitivity and the War in Iraq

Since the Vietnam War, policymakers have worried that the U.S. public will support military operations only if the human costs of the war, as measured in combat casualties, are minimal. 1A combination of circumstances makes the public response to the ongoing war in Iraq during the presidential campaign of 2003-04 an important opportunity to evaluate this hypothesis.First, the war in Iraq is both the most controversial and most deadly U.S. military operation since the Vietnam War.By Election Day in November 2004, nearly 1,200 U.S. soldiers had been killed in action.At the same time, Americans seemed increasingly divided over President George W. Bush's reasons