Washington ? Americans’ opposition to the Iraq war continues to grow, with 69 percent of the public now saying that the Bush administration launched the war based on incorrect assumptions, according to a survey released Friday.

In a finding that tracks other recent polling, half the public (49 percent) now says the decision to go to war was wrong, compared to 46 percent who say the administration was right, according to the survey for the Program on International Policy Attitudes.

A year ago, 63 percent said the decision to go to war was correct.

The nationwide poll of 733 people was conducted Aug. 5-11 by Knowledge Networks of Menlo Park, Calif. The margin of error was plus or minus 3.7 percent.

The survey found that a large majority (80 percent) of Americans perceive that the administration is still claiming, as it did before the war, that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction or a major WMD program.

A Senate Intelligence Committee report in July concluded that U.S. intelligence misjudged the Iraqi threat, and that Iraq had only limited nuclear, biological or chemical weapons programs before the war. No evidence of such weapons has yet been discovered.

Bush officials now say the war was justified because Iraq was capable of developing such weapons, and they stress another reason: freeing Iraq from Saddam Hussein’s dictatorship.

The poll found that 55 percent believe the administration is continuing to assert that Iraq was “working closely” with the al-Qaida terrorist network. The Sept. 11 commission report last month concluded that while there had been contacts between Iraqi officials and al-Qaida members, Iraq didn’t give al-Qaida substantial support.

Public acceptance of the administration’s twin claims about Iraqi WMD and Iraq’s close cooperation with al-Qaida has dropped to about half.