Support for Bush jumps to 71 per cent on war success

The capture of Baghdad has boosted President George Bush's popularity at home, with a new Newsweek poll showing his popularity rating at 71 per cent.

That is 18 percentage points higher than the 53 per cent approval rating he had on the eve of the war – the result, in part, of the poll's timing as television images were showing Saddam Hussein's statue brought down in central Baghdad to cheers from the crowd.

The boost that almost all wartime leaders enjoy from military victories fell far short of the 91 per cent approval rating that President Bush's father enjoyed at the end of the 1991 Gulf War.

Any misgivings over the administration are focused, at least at the moment, on the domestic economy, with 47 per cent saying they disapprove of the President's economic performance against 44 per cent who say they approve. Tax cuts for the rich and a failure to redress imbalances in healthcare coverage are also cause for concern.

The number of Americans who think the war will cause serious problems for the United States in the Middle East has dropped from 74 per cent in January to 57 per cent now. The number who think they are at risk from a retaliatory terror strike on US soil has dropped from 86 per cent in February to 58 per cent now.