3 in 10 Americans Regard North Korea as Danger to U.S.

Americans have voted North Korea the second most dangerous threat to the U.S. next only to al Qaeda, the international terrorist organization responsible for the 9.11 attack.

On March 10, the U.S. public polling institute Zogby America announced the results of their survey. Three Americans out of ten or 30% of the nation’s public answered that North Korea is the second largest threat to the U.S. Al Qaeda received 32% of the vote and obtained first place while Iraq was considered a threat by 22% of the population.

The threat of North Korea increased to second place from third one during the last survey. Meanwhile, regardless of imminent war, Iraq’s threat level ranking has gone down from second to third place. This appears to be due to North Korea’s consistent threats related to its nuclear weapons. On the other hand, American support for war against Iraq has increased slightly since the last survey was conducted on February 2, from 54% to 57%. Those against the war accounted for roughly the same at 41% in the second survey to 40% in the latest survey.

Support for war against Iraq are Republicans (84%), investors (67%), and Caucasian whites (62%). A majority of supporters are in the 25-54 age group (61%). Opposition to the war mainly are Democrats (61%) and African-Americans (75%) in the age group of 18-24 (59%).

Support for President Bush’s job performance shows a decrease (54%) since the second survey which recorded 57% support.

maypole@donga.com