By Steve Schifferes BBC News Online in Washington

The college educated are more likely to have concerns about war

A fresh analysis of US public opinion polls confirms that there are deep splits in the electorate over the wisdom of military action against Iraq.

Democrats, women, and older voters are much less likely to express support for attacking Saddam Hussein.

The failure to build a bipartisan consensus - and the polarisation between Democrats and Republicans - could lead to difficulties for President Bush if his strategy for dealing with Iraq runs into difficulties.

The latest polls show that President Bush would lose an election, if it were held now, to the Democratic candidate.

The divisions are much deeper than those during US action against Afghanistan, and echo the kind of differences during the Vietnam War era.

Republican war

According to the latest US opinion poll from ABC News, at the beginning of March 59% of Americans supported President Bush's policy to disarm Saddam Hussein by force - a figure that has been broadly unchanged over several months across a number of polls.

However, the survey showed: :

• only 34% supported this policy without reservations
• 24% had reservations (including the need for support from allies)
• 37% were opposed to it outright.
• 67% of men supported Mr Bush, 51% of women

There are unprecedented differences between Republicans and Democrats over military action.

Male supporters of Mr Bush's Republican Party were overwhelming supportive, with 89% of Republican men endorsing unilateral action.

In contrast, only 34% of Democratic women back Mr Bush's policy.

Other strongly Democrat groups, such as non-whites, are also strongly against the war, with only 35% backing military action.

Anti-war elderly

And perhaps surprisingly, it is the old rather than the young who are most against the war.

GENERATION GAP Over 65: 42% back war 35-44: 67% 18-34: 60% Source: ABC News poll

And people in the Northeast - states like New York, Connecticut and Massachusetts - are less likely to back the war than those from the South or the Midwest.

The elderly also were more likely to trust Colin Powell rather than President Bush to explain clearly what was at stake.

These divisions parallel the splits that emerged in the electorate during the close 2000 election, where cultural conservatives from rural areas backed Mr Bush, while big city liberals supported Mr Gore.

Another poll, carried out by the Pew Research Centre in mid-February, has tracked some of these differences.

It found that evangelical Protestants supported a war against Iraq much more strongly (85% in favour) than Catholics, non-evangelical Protestants and non-religious Americans.

It found that college graduates were more reluctant to support a war than those with a high school education.

And rural areas were much stronger backers of the war than large cities.

War worries

Among the key reservations among those polled were whether the US takes action against Iraq along with allies, or has to act alone.

Most Americans (57%) believe that the US should get another UN resolution before taking military action, and even more believe that allies need to be on board before an attack begins.

The Pew poll also tracked the worries about the possible course of a war, and found that women were much more concerned than men about almost every aspect.

For example, 65% of women, but only 45% of men, worried a great deal about high US troop casualties, while 65% of women, compared to 48% of men, worried about more terrorist attacks in the United States.

Similar differences emerged over concerns about high civilian casualties and an all-out war in the Middle East.

Overall, the polls suggest that the possibility of war is viewed very differently by different groups of the population.

And even among the majority, there are serious reservations about what strategy to pursue.