Watching and waiting

Deanna Neese, who works as a supervisor at Kroger's grocery store in Rome, Ga., offers a common response to the impending conflict. "I'm afraid," she says frankly.

She isn't convinced that attacking Iraq will reduce the risk of terrorism in the US: "I don't think anything we do is going to prevent them from doing more attacks," she says. She worries that war might make the country more vulnerable in other ways, including economically. "It's just a bad time," she sighs. "The economy is not really well, and if we go to war, it will not get better."

Still, she acknowledges that the attacks of 9/11 have altered her sense of the world - "we had a false sense of security." And in this new climate, she agrees the US has to be more vigilant. "I guess we really do need to watch what's going on over there," she says, and to take whatever steps are needed to make sure countries like Iraq "don't get weapons we won't be able to combat."

Of course, to many Americans, the reasons for war are not entirely clear. Many who oppose the war suspect it has less to do with public safety than with Mr. Bush's desire to finish the job his father started, or with other, tacit goals. "It's all about oil," speculates Lisa James, a Selma, Ala., police administrator.

Even many who support the war admit that they don't totally understand the issues involved. Although there's widespread agreement that everything changed after 9/11, there's also a sense that the country is still feeling its way through the next phase, without a clear road map. "It is a new time," says Jerry Herston, pastor at the First Methodist church in Lineville, Ala. "We have the feeling of being hated."

With threats so varied and hard to predict, many Americans say the public has little choice but to follow its leaders. "You have to trust" that the Bush administration knows more than the average citizen, and will lead the country down the best course, says Lamar Car-michael, a dentist in Lineville, Ala. On the other hand, he reflects: "I said that during the Vietnam War - and came to find out they didn't know a whole lot more than we did."

Confusion about the war's purpose is hardly unusual, says John Mueller, a political scientist at Ohio State University. "Six months after Pearl Harbor, half the people said they didn't have a clear idea what World War II was about," he notes.

And at this stage, many Americans say they would prefer simply to get the war over with, as a way of eliminating at least one form of uncertainty. "Everything is stuck," says Ciyan Khan, a Chicago cab driver. "People have stopped living their normal life."

• Staff writer Abraham McLaughlin contributed to this report.

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