Doubts over Iraq drive a volatile U.S. campaign

WASHINGTON, Oct 15 (Reuters) With three weeks left in a volatile US election campaign, growing public unhappiness with the Iraq war has become the top obstacle for Republicans in their fight to keep control of Congress, pollsters and analysts said.

While a Capitol Hill sex scandal shook up Republicans and President George W Bush's sinking popularity is weighing them down, public concern over Iraq is the dominant factor driving voters toward Democrats in the November 7 election.

''This election has become a referendum on Bush and a referendum on his principal policy, which in the minds of voters is Iraq,'' said pollster Andrew Kohut of the Pew Research Center.

''It is clear the public is angry with President Bush and therefore with Republicans for a war that has his name on it,'' he said.

Iraq has been a critical theme on the campaign trail all year, with Republicans frequently on the defensive over Democratic calls for a change of course and charges the Republicans are rubber-stamps for Bush's decisions.

Republican supporters of Bush's argument that Iraq is a central front in the broader war against terrorism now find themselves part of a national minority, according to recent polls.

An NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll found 57 per cent of registered voters did not believe America's safety from terrorism depended on success in Iraq -- a direct refutation of Bush's argument for staying the course.

The per centage of voters who thought the Iraq war could actually hurt US efforts against terrorism jumped to 46 per cent from 32 per cent in one month, while 61 per cent said Iraq was in the midst of a civil war, the same survey found.

A flurry of other polls showed Bush and Republicans falling to new lows amid the unfolding scandal over former Republican Rep. Mark Foley's lewd messages to male teen-age congressional aides.

Most of those polls also found the war was the top issue driving voters in the November 7 elections, when Democrats must pick up 15 seats in the House of Representatives and six seats in the Senate to win control of Congress.

SPOTLIGHT ON IRAQ? ''If the spotlight is on Iraq for much of the final stage of the campaign, the Republicans could well lose both chambers,'' political analyst Charlie Cook of the nonpartisan Cook Political Report said in a column.

Democrats were favored over Republicans by 17 per centage points in a USA Today/Gallup poll asking which party could better handle Iraq, and the traditional Republican advantage on fighting terrorism vanished in the same poll, with Democrats ahead by 5 points.

Cook said the Foley scandal was a problem for Republicans, ''but in the larger scheme of things, the fact that this election is becoming a referendum on the war in Iraq is the real nightmare for the Republican Party.'' As the Foley scandal broke, Bush and Republicans already were on the defensive over a government report saying the Iraq war actually fueled Islamic extremism and over a new book by Bob Woodward of The Washington Post that said the White House bungled the war.

Amid a surge of violence and signs the country is drifting toward civil war, Britain's army chief said last week that postwar planning in Iraq was poor and British troops should leave Iraq soon because their presence was worsening security.

Bush renewed his message of economic improvement and his charges Democrats are weak on terrorism during a midweek news conference, but it was soon drowned out by the drumbeat of news on the Foley scandal, Iraq and a North Korea nuclear test.

''I've never seen anything like it,'' independent pollster Dick Bennett of American Research Group said of the combination of anger and uncertainty among the public. The topic of Iraq dominates focus groups he conducts with voters, he said.

''What people want is some hope for the future. Who will make this better? They aren't hearing much of that,'' he said. ''Aside from gasoline prices, nothing is getting better for Republicans.'' REUTERS SY KP1803