At 8:46 in the morning of September 11, 2001 when the first plane hit, our war on terror had begun. It was just a few days after that when a group known as Al-Qaeda, led by what was soon to become a household name, Osama Bin-laden, was linked to the devastating attack and then deemed responsible. A month and a week later, on October 18, 2001, U.S. special forces began the ground phase of the "War on Terrorism" just eleven days after a bombing campaign by the United States and Britain that crippled the Taliban Militia. "Nearly two years, over 3,000 civilian and 300 coalition casualties" (http://216.239.37.104/search?q=cache:wJ3rixJ7x_UJ:pubpages.unh.edu/~mwherold/AfghanDailyCount.pdf+casualty+count&hl=en&ie=UTF-8. Sept. 8, 2003) later, the war is on a different front, and the terror has a new name, Iraq.
During his address on the night of September 7, 2003, just four days before the two year mark, President Bush stated that Iraq had now become "the central front" in the war on terror. Didn't that end when Saddam and his ruthless regime was ousted out of power? Get rid of the bad guy and the day is saved, then everything can return to normal? There was no long term commitment, no looking back, no regrets, and no questions asked. This war on terrorism was starting to sound like an application for a loan, and most Americans believed it. A poll conducted by ABC News, at regular intervals, since October 1, 2001 shows that right after September 11, 92% of Americans approved of the way President Bush was handling the U.S. campaign against terrorism. Two years later, on September 3, that approval rating dropped to 67%. As for the other .
8% - 33% of the American population, they objected the war from the start. .
Right after the towers fell and the Pentagon collapsed, there was a significant number of people pleading for the country not to do anything brash or in haste, but to think out appropriate actions and resolve the matter peacefully.