By Jennifer Hansler, March 20, 2018<\/p>\n
Washington (CNN)<\/cite>American attitudes about the US invasion of Iraq are nearly evenly split 15 years after the war began, a new Pew poll<\/a> finds.<\/p>\n Forty-eight percent of respondents said the US made the wrong decision in using military force in Iraq, while 43% said it was the right decision.<\/p>\n The poll, which was conducted from March 7-14, found that more than half of Americans (53%) believe the US mostly failed to accomplish its goals in Iraq. Only 39% said they thought it had mostly succeeded.<\/p>\n Beliefs about the Iraq War continue to be largely divided along partisan lines. Sixty-one percent of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents say the US was right to use military force in Iraq, compared to only 27% of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents. Half of conservative Republicans and 43% of moderate\/liberal Republicans said they thought the US mostly succeeded in its goals, according to Pew.<\/a> In contrast, only 18% of liberal Democrats and 39% of conservative\/moderate Democrats said the same.<\/p>\n Overall, positive opinions of the war have declined since it began. Nearly three-quarters (74%) of respondents in May 2003 said they thought the US invasion was the right decision. That number dropped to its lowest point in Pew records — 36% — in late December 2007 and has not been above 50% since February 2006.<\/p>\n On March 19, 2003, then-President George W. Bush announced the launch of Operation Iraqi Freedom,<\/a> telling the American people military action against Iraq had begun.<\/p>\n The war in Iraq would go on for almost nine years — until December 2011, when the last US troops in that nation crossed the border to Kuwait. The US still has a military presence in the country, however, to fight ISIS.<\/p>\n