By SHARON COHEN
ASSOCIATED PRESS
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Some of those who listened to Bush's speech still had reservations about a U.S. military invasion of Iraq, while others said it's time to topple the Iraqi dictator.
"He seemed resolved in light of 9-11 that this is a threat and he doesn't want to wait on the smoking gun," Ron DeBlanc, a pastor from Fairborn, Ohio, said of Bush. "I agree with that. He's got to protect the nation."
Virginia Hodges, 49, an account executive from Ridgeland, Miss., also said Saddam must be ousted to prevent future terrorist attacks. "We are just sitting targets," she said.
But others remained unconvinced.
Maurice Foster, a 20-year-old political science major at Alabama State University in Montgomery, said he didn't believe Bush made his case.
"It seems like he's thinking about what's in the best interest of the United States," Foster said, "but has failed to consider the rest of the world, and I think he should have taken that into consideration."
Jessica Robinson, 18, of Worcester, Mass., among a crowd of 100 people clustered around a man holding a radio in Times Square in New York, felt the president was trying to deflect attention from the nation's domestic problems.
"I think President Bush is just trying to think of something to take away from what's going right now in our own country - unemployment - and taking away money from education and putting it into war," she said.
A CNN-USA Today-Gallup poll released Monday showed the American public generally supports Bush's plan to oust Saddam. The survey found that 57 percent think the president has made a convincing case about the need for military action against Iraq.
Opinion was almost evenly divided when people were questioned about an attack without an attempt to gain U.N. support.
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"Certainly, we don't sympathize with Saddam Hussein," said retired research economist Monzer Kahf, who emigrated from Syria in 1971 and now lives in Westminster, Calif. "The real worry is the people in the area. The whole area is going to be inflamed. It doesn't take a match to burn it. It's already burning."
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But Lindsay Patross, 23, a Democrat from Pittsburgh who watched the speech while exercising in a gym, still has her doubts. "I think the administration has done a pretty good job of spinning, but I don't have a lot of confidence that I've gotten what's really going on here," said Patross, a recent Cornell University graduate who majored in American studies.
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