Americans Not Fearful of Being Victimized by `Many' Further Terrorist Attacks

Contact: Thomas Riehle, President Ipsos-Reid U.S. Public Affairs 202.463.7300 [email protected] Between October 19-21, 2001, Ipsos-Reid Express interviewed a representative sample of 1,000 US adults nationwide by telephone. The margin of error is +/- 3.1%. On questions that were asked of half the sample, the margin of error is +/- 4.5%. "Americans are scared, but not terrorized, by events," reports Thomas Riehle, President, U.S. Public Affairs, Ipsos-Reid. "Almost everyone (92%) expects further attempts at terrorism, but only 11% expect `many' such attempts to succeed. "A total of 30% of all Americans feel America as a whole is safe, expecting either no more attempts at terrorism in the U.S. (5%) or confident the U.S. government will foil all attempts that are made (25%). Most (55%) expect `a few' attempted terrorist attacks to succeed." Riehle said. "Only 15% feel they are personally in physical danger from a future attack. People in the Northeast (22%) are more likely to feel personally at risk." "Almost everyone expects terrorism to survive the war on terrorism, with only 12% saying they expect the war on terrorism to lead to an end to terrorism," Riehle reports, "but most expect some measure of success. Although 17% expect the number of terrorist incidents to increase in the next five years and not be eliminated, more than twice that number (36%) expect attacks to persist but decline in number over the next five years. "That means a total of almost half (48%) either expect an end to terrorism or a reduction in the number of terrorist incidents over the next five years, while 46% expect the number of terrorist incidents to stay the same (29%) or increase (17%)," Riehle reports. On a day-to-day basis, do you fear that you personally are in physical danger from a future terrorist attack?

Yes	15
No	84
Don't Know/Refused	1

Do you think that there will be further attempts by terrorist groups to conduct terrorist attacks on U.S. sites?

There will be no further terrorist attempts	5
Don't know if there will be futher attempts	2
There will be further terrorist attempts and... (A total of 92% expect more terrorist attempts and...)
....US will successfully block all of them	25
....Only a few terrorist attacks will succeed	55
....Many terrorist attacks will succeed	10
....Don't Know	3

Do you think that the current war on terrorism will lead to the end of terrorism in the world?

Yes	12
No	85
Don't Know/Refused	3

Looking ahead five years from now, do you think there will be more terrorists incidents around the world, fewer terrorist incidents, or the same amount of terrorist incidents?

Believe war on terrorism will end terrorism	12
Believe war will NOT end terrorism and there will be...
More terrorist incidents	17
Fewer terrorist incidents	36
About the same amount of terrorist incidents	29
Don't Know/Refused	6