“While the military might make criticisms … they remain committed to the enterprise and optimistic that they’ll see it through to victory.”

Feaver sees no “Iraq syndrome akin to the Vietnam syndrome,” marked by alienation from both the war and its leadership.

He says the military today believes “defeat (in Iraq) would be awful and victory is possible and that leads to the staying power you’re seeing. … It’s reflecting a war-time survey of a military that still thinks it can win. … When the military thinks it can’t win, that’s bad news.”

Survey respondents also were clear about the idea of a military draft: They don’t like it.

In addition to the 75 percent who said men should not be drafted, 83 percent rejected the idea of compulsory service for women, and 73 percent said returning to the draft would lower the quality of the force.

Nearly as many, 65 percent, said a draft would make it harder to maintain discipline.

Mostly satisfied

In terms of job satisfaction, the military is comparable to the civilian world. In our poll, 37 percent of service members said they were completely satisfied and another 50 percent said they were somewhat satisfied. Among civilians, those numbers reverse, with 50 percent saying they are completely satisfied and 39 percent somewhat satisfied.

The aspect of military life that drew the most complaints: housing, with a quarter of respondents saying their military housing was poor or very poor.

But there’s no escaping other areas of concern. When asked who should be held accountable for shortages of body armor among deployed troops, respondents gave Congress the biggest share of the blame, 60 percent. But 49 percent said senior military officials also should be held accountable. Only 35 percent laid blame on the Bush administration.

Similarly, most respondents don’t believe responsibility for the abuse of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib should run uphill.

Respondents were asked to check boxes alongside as many different groups as they thought should be punished for the abuse. Some 74 percent thought the soldiers who committed the abuse should be punished and 67 percent said the officer in direct command of the prison should be punished.

But only 21 percent said high-level military commanders should be held accountable, and even fewer — 12 percent — thought civilian policymakers should share in the blame. The president, meanwhile, was almost blame-free: Only 3 percent named Bush.

Staff writers Joe Chennelly, Bruce Rolfsen, Mark Faram, Gordon Lubold and freelancer Jodi Upton contributed to this report.