Worry and Anger Over Iraq Situation

The anxiety over Iraq easily bubbles over into anger for many people, who see what has happened in Iraq -- especially the abuse of prisoners -- as an erosion of American values.

"I just kept thinking, stopping that kind of stuff from happening is why we went in there in the first place," said Stephen Zukowski, as he worked in a deli in Hopkinton, Mass., steps from where the Boston Marathon begins. "That's as bad as their previous government."

"It makes me mad. You just get the sense that we are not in the right anymore, if we ever were," said Jennifer Eldridge, 18, working at a supermarket in Hopkinton. "I think it gets worse every day, and the worst thing we could do is send more people over to die."

"I am angry with the president," said John Lopez, a veterinary technician in Miami's Coconut Grove neighborhood. "We are there because of his obsession to go there, and I've gotten angrier and angrier. I can't turn the television on in the morning to 'Good Morning America' because in five minutes I am frothing at the mouth. It is a fiasco."

Others are just as angry but direct their emotion toward Iraqi fighters. "I'm worried about our soldiers getting killed over there," said Steve Schwartzkopf ("No relation to the general," he said, smiling) as he worked behind the counter of Ogallala's Runza restaurant. "I think we should just go for it, you know, drop bombs and clear out any city where Americans are killed. But we're not willing to do that."

Across the country, Americans are saying that the war in Iraq reminds them of another war that lasted longer than expected. "This started something that is going to end up very bad, worse than Vietnam," said Gus Serrano, in his picture-framing shop in Miami. "It's like a tennis game going back and forth -- I do this to you, then you do that to me. I worry that it is going to get worse and worse, so bad that there will be more terrorist attacks like the World Trade Center."

The signs reading "Support Our Troops" and "United We Stand" are still found on posters, school lockers and bumpers. But after 15 months of difficult fighting, many people have decided that supporting American soldiers does not mean backing the war itself.

"I support our troops, but I certainly don't agree with what we're trying to do by trying to Americanize and westernize a culture that doesn't want to be Americanized," said Janet Pope, a management analyst for the Pasadena Police Department. "I'm worried and borderline disgusted that many of our young people will die in this war when we truly don't know the reasons behind it."

Staff writer Jonathan Finer in Hopkinton, Mass., and special correspondents Kimberly Edds in Pasadena, Calif.; Michelle Garcia in New York; Kari Lydersen in Chicago; and Catharine Skipp in Miami contributed to this report.