(Credit: CBS News)

CBS News Poll analysis by the CBS News Polling Unit: Sarah Dutton, Jennifer De Pinto, Fred Backus and Anthony Salvanto.

Two weeks after an American soldier in Afghanistan allegedly went on a rampage killing 17 Afghan civilians, American confidence in the war is at an all-time low, a new CBS News/New York Times poll suggests.

According to the survey, conducted among 986 adults from March 21-25, just 23 percent of Americans believe the U.S. is doing the right thing by fighting in Afghanistan. That percentage - the lowest ever recorded by CBS News and the New York Times in this survey - is down from 36 percent in November 2011. Sixty-nine percent of Americans said the U.S. should not be involved in Afghanistan, the highest percentage of respondents who have said so since CBS News/New York Times started asking that question in 2009.

Only one in four Americans believes the war is going well for the U.S., the poll indicates, down from 48 percent last November. This percentage comes close to the question's all-time low, at 23 percent in November 2009, shortly before President Obama announced his plan for a surge of 30,000 troops in Afghanistan.

In recent months, a string of controversies involving U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan may have cast negative light on the ongoing conflict there: On March 11, an American Staff Sgt., Robert Bales, is accused of leaving his base in Southern Afghanistan to kill 17 Afghan civilians in what is being charged as a premeditated attack. In February, meanwhile, five U.S. troops stationed in Afghanistan were found to have inadvertently burned discarded copies of the Koran, which sparked days of protests there and resulted in several deaths of U.S. troops and others.

U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron and President Obama

(Credit: Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

UPDATED 2:23 p.m. ET

(CBS News) -- President Obama on Wednesday said the United States is continuing to make progress in Afghanistan and would keep its existing plan for that nation to control its own security less than three years from now.

"I am confident we can put Afghans in a position where they can deal with their own security," Mr. Obama told reporters at the White House after meeting with British Prime Minister David Cameron.

International forces are scheduled to take on a supporting role in 2013 and the Afghan forces are expected to be responsible for their own security by the end of 2014.

"I don't anticipate at this stage that we are going to be making any sudden additional changes to the plan that we currently have," he said in a joint press conference with Cameron at his side.

The comments come just days after a shooting in Afghanistan, where a U.S. solider has been accused of killing 16 civilians, many of whom were asleep. The alleged shooter was flown out of Afghanistan to a detention facility in another, undisclosed, nation. Afghan President Hamid Karzai knew about, and approved of, the decision to move the alleged gunman, a U.S. official told CBS News Pentagon correspondent David Martin.

Mitt Romney

(Credit: Win McNamee/Getty Images)

(CBS News) KIRKWOOD, Mo. -- Because of President Obama's policies, U.S. troops are "stretched to the breaking point," Mitt Romney said on Tuesday in criticizing Obama's handling of the war in Afghanistan.

Romney said Obama's plan for withdrawal from the country is too expedient and reveals too much information to the Taliban insurgents there. He also said it is wearing down U.S. forces that must go on multiple rotations as colleagues are pulled out of active duty. By contrast, Romney said that, as president, he would increase the military by 100,000 troops.

The former Massachusetts governor confined his remarks on Afghanistan to Obama and did not bring up Sunday's massacre involving a soldier who is accused of leaving his base in a remote part of southern Afghanistan and shooting Afghan civilians. At least 16 people died, including nine children. Romney, in a rare show of agreement, has taken Obama's side on the implications of that matter.

Updated at 12:22 p.m. ET

(CBS News) President Obama on Tuesday vowed to hold whoever was responsible for the killing spree in Afghanistan that left 16 civilians dead over the weekend "fully accountable," directing the Pentagon to "spare no effort" in conducting a full investigation to find out what happened.

"The United States takes this as seriously as if it were our own citizens and our own children who were murdered," Mr. Obama said from the White House Rose Garden. "We're heartbroken over the loss of innocent life."

A U.S. soldier, now in U.S. custody, has been accused of killing the civilians in their homes in the middle of the night between Saturday and Sunday and then burning some of their corpses. Afghan President Hamid Karzai said nine of those killed were children and three were women.

U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, left, arrives in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan

(Credit: Scott Olson)

(CBS News) ABOARD A U.S. MILITARY AIRCRAFT -- Flying across the Atlantic Ocean Monday evening, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta slowly walked into the press compartment of his reconfigured 747 - known as the "doomsday plane" - looking as though he were shouldering the weight of the world.

"War is hell," he grimly intoned. He was flying to meetings in Kyrgyzstan, but his thoughts were elsewhere, absorbed by the latest horror in Afghanistan - the shooting deaths of 16 innocent Afghan civilians, mostly children, allegedly by a rogue U.S. soldier.

Panetta said he was "deeply shocked and saddened" by the incident - the same words other officials have used. But coming from Panetta, a man who's known for wearing his emotions on the surface, they didn't sound like talking points -- they sounded like the heartfelt words of a man who takes this kind of unspeakable tragedy personally.

(CBS News) -- President Obama said Monday the United States should not stay in Afghanistan any longer than is absolutely necessary -- but added that he does not want to "rush for the exits" in the wake of a shooting rampage by a U.S. soldier who allegedly killed 16 Afghan civilians, including nine children.

"I think it's important for us just to make sure that we are not ... in Afghanistan longer than we need to be," Mr. Obama said in an interview with Denver CBS stationKCNC television.

In a separate interview with Pittsburgh CBS stationKDKA, Mr Obama said, "it's important for us to make sure that we get out in responsible way, so that we don't end up having to go back in...but what we don't want to do is to do it in a way that is just a rush for the exits."

President Barack Obama

(Credit: CBS)

Updated 4:40 p.m. ET

(CBS News) President Barack Obama called the apparent murder of 16 Afghan civilians by an American soldier "tragic and shocking," and said he was "deeply saddened" by the incident and called Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai to express his condolences. 

The president released a statement after a soldier allegedly opened fire in Kandahar province killing 16 Afghan civilians, including women and children. A soldier turned himself in and is in U.S. custody.

"This incident is tragic and shocking, and does not represent the exceptional character of our military and the respect that the United States has for the people of Afghanistan," the president said.

The president said Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and General John Allen, Commander of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), have opened an investigation into the incident.

President Obama said the U.S. will "hold accountable anyone responsible" and that he offers "condolences to the families and loves who lost their lives, and to the people of Afghanistan, who have endured too much violence and suffering."

An Afghan policeman keeps watch as locals inspect the wreckage of a car at the site of a suicide attack in the city of Jalalabad in Nangarhar province, Feb. 27, 2012.

(Credit: Noorullah Shirzada/AFP/Getty Images)

"If anything the violence may give impetus to accelerate the transition to putting an Afghan face in charge of security," a senior national security official tells CBS News.

The Obama administration is already working on a plan to methodically draw down American forces after the decade-long war. Currently, there are 90,000 troops in Afghanistan. The plan is to reduce that number to 68,000 by the end of the fighting season this summer. It is expected there will be a further reduction in forces, although a decision on troop levels has not yet been made by President Obama.

(Credit: CBS)

CBS News Poll analysis by the CBS News Polling Unit: Sarah Dutton, Jennifer De Pinto, Fred Backus and Anthony Salvanto

After 10 years of war in Afghanistan, nearly two-thirds of Americans want troop levels in the country to be reduced, a new CBS News poll shows.

Sixty-two percent said troop levels should be decreased immediately, according to the poll, conducted Sept. 28 - Oct. 2. Twenty-four percent want troop levels kept the same for now, while 7 percent want them increased. In 2009, as discussions to deploy additional troops to Afghanistan were underway, about a third supported increasing the number of U.S. troops there.

Americans were also asked when they think large numbers of troops should come home. The percentage who want large numbers to return from Afghanistan within a year stands at 38 percent, up from 33 percent in July 2010. Another 24 percent said they'd be willing to have troops there for one to two more years. Ten percent said they'd accept two to five more years, while 18 percent said they'd be willing to have troops there "as long as it takes," down from 26 percent in summer 2010.

U.S. Army Sgt. Vu Nhon keeps watch Sept. 30, 2011, during a mission in the border-crossing town of Turkham Nangarhar, Afghanistan, near the border with Pakistan.

(Credit: AFP/Getty Images)

CBS News Poll analysis by the CBS News Polling Unit: Sarah Dutton, Jennifer De Pinto, Fred Backus and Anthony Salvanto

Half of Americans think the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan hasn't been a success, a CBS News poll released Monday shows.

This week marks the 10th anniversary of the war's beginning, and "CBS Evening News" anchor Scott Pelley will broadcast reports on the war from Kandahar, Afghanistan, Monday and Tuesday nights.

Continue »