No jornal USA TODAY

More than half of Americans say President Bush decided to go to war on Iraq based on faulty assumptions, says a poll released Thursday.

An overwhelming majority of those polled — 87% — said the Bush administration portrayed Iraq as an imminent threat before the war.

About as many, 84%, say the United States has not found weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, according to the poll for the Program on International Policy Attitudes at the University of Maryland.

Six in 10 say that before going to war, the U.S. government should have taken more time to find out if Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. Troops have found little evidence to validate most of the Bush administration's assertions before the war that Iraq had an active chemical, biological and nuclear weapons programs.

The 55% of the public that believes the war was based on faulty assumptions about Iraq are divided on whether the president knew the assumptions were false, according to the poll conducted by Knowledge Networks.

Despite these doubts, a majority, 57%, said the United States made the right decision going to war against Iraq — down from 68% who felt that way in May.