Majority of Iraqis See Life Better Without Saddam

[tobius]

Mon, Mar 15, 2004
LONDON (Reuters) - A majority of Iraqis believe life is better now than it was under Saddam Hussein (news - web sites), according to a poll released on Tuesday. <snip>
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=574&ncid=721&e=1&u=/nm/20040316/wl_nm/britain_iraq_poll_dc

Almost half (49 percent) of those questioned believed the invasion of their country by U.S. and British troops was right, compared with 39 percent who said it was wrong, the poll commissioned by the BBC and other broadcasters found.

Some 57 percent said that life was better now than under Saddam, against 19 percent who said it was worse and 23 percent who said it was about the same.

Iraqi people appeared optimistic about the future, with 71 percent saying they expected things to be better in a years time, six percent predicting it will be worse and nine percent the same.

Overall, 70 percent said that life was good now, compared with 29 percent who said it was bad. <snip>

Opinion was evenly split on whether the invasion of Iraq. The poll found that 41 percent believed that the invasion humiliated Iraq while 42 percent said it liberated the country

[ConcernedCanuk]

1. Life may be better, but no love is lost for the US . .

.
.
.

Just a quarter said they had confidence in U.S.-led occupation forces to deliver their needs. There were far higher levels of confidence in Iraqi religious leaders (70 percent), local police (68 percent) and the new Iraqi army (56 percent).

Fifty-one percent were opposed to the continued presence of foreign forces in Iraq (news - web sites), against 39 percent who supported it.

Almost a fifth of those questioned said that attacks on foreign forces were acceptable, while 14 percent said the same about attacks on the civilian administrators of the Coalition Provisional Authority and 10 percent on foreigners working with the CPA.

Asked what political system they believed was needed in their country, 86 percent said they wanted democracy, but 81 percent said a single strong Iraqi leader was needed.

....................................................

Regardless, they can "poll" the livin' daylights in Iraq, American troops will keep dying as long as they stay in Iraq.

I realize that the violence will not stop if the US leaves, but they have to leave sooner or later,

and by all accounts,

SOONER would be prudent, and let the Iraqis choose who, if anybody they want to "help" them now. It is obvious it sure ain't the US !

[papau]

2. We've won the minds of 57%, -at a cost of lives and fortune -and the media

says this poll proves what?

or is our media just a Rove reprint service once again?

[keithyboy]

3. Now just what would say in a poll by the "occupiers?"

At least 20% error rate in this poll. 10% seeking to curry favor, another 10% afraid to tell the truth. It depends on where this poll was taken and under what circumstances. I would have more faith in a poll that was taken by secret ballot.

[htuttle]

4. When I saw a similar poll yesterday

Closer inspection of the results revealed two things:
a) Kurds were polled far above their proportion. The Kurds are happy, certainly -- they are going to end up with Kurdistan, but the Arabs in Iraq have a different opinion of the US invasion entirely.
b) Very few of those polled seemed to be interested in either a religious run government, or one based on Sharia law. This leads me to believe that they hardly polled any Shia.

Not sure who they polled other than the Kurds.

[Art_from_Ark]

6. How many women did they poll?

For some reason, I can't see women in Iraq feeling they'll be better off under strict Islamic law than they were under Saddam's relatively egalitarian laws.

[Vladimir]

9. Yes exactly

Any polling now in Iraq is going to be biased - if for no other reason than because its dangerous to go around polling people. I am willing to bet that people without telephones polled at a much lower rate for example, because with them you have to go door to door and risk being in the wrong place at the wrong time. I am also willing to bet that a large reason why Kurds get polled in disproportionate numbers is because its generally safer in those parts of Iraq - hence the pollster's job is easier.

V

[Jack Rabbit]

5. The question now is . . .

. . . would long-term prospects be better for Iraqis under self-rule or continued occupation?

[Malva Zebrina]

7. Stockholm sydrome

Stockholm syndrome
n.
A phenomenon in which a hostage begins to identify with and grow sympathetic to his or her captor.




--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2003 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.

sooner or later the people will say they are better off--they have witnessed our awesome bombs and our awesome military--they recognize they are powerless.

It should not even be a question. Bush's PR team is working, working working in Iraq to send us these positive images

Soon 90 percent of Americans will think the Iraqi slaughter was "worth it"

[Jack Rabbit]

8. Possibily

However, I think the problem may be that the question is framed in terms of Saddam rather than the current situation. The issue is a red herring designed to distract attention away from the problems created by the Bushies.

Of course, Iraqis are best rid of Saddam. It's good that he's not murdering them any more.

That doesn't mean that they won't also be well rid of Bush and his corporate cronies who are robbing them blind right now.

[Malva Zebrina]

11. I am not sure of this, but I assume that the UN sanctions have been

lifted but I don't remember reading that. Is that correct? If so, life has got to get better.

Rid of Saddam at the cost of ten thousand of their fellow Iraqi civilians. yup--worth it. Bush will throw bread and circuses their way--they will soon forget whatever it was that cause them misery--the ten year bombings , the no fly zones, the brutal sanctions that killed 500,000 of their children. They will all be happy and get fat eating at the local McDonald's and the violence prone, greedy people of the US will continue to think that the United States owns the world, can slaughter tens of thousands of people by lying about their evil leader, and phew--ain't we great--we got rid of Saddam.

We also got rid of Aristede and trying to get rid of Chavez.

Iraq, as has got to be evident even to the dullest of observers, was a slaughter of peoples based on lies about their leader becasue that country had what Bush and his neocon advisors wanted. Hegemony in the ME, access to lucrative oil fields and the pipelines, and protection of Israel.

We are losing all our manufacturing jobs and soon will not have a single significant factory in this country. But we have a replacement for all of the jobs being lost--a military that makes money for private companies and that pays people to kill other people. It has a huge budget this military factory--and will soon be the largest employer we can brag about.

[Barkley]

10. This poll is misleading

What percent of Iraqis want the U.S. leave immediately?

How was their survey conducted -- by phone?

Is there bias in the possibility that Iraqis are giving the interviewer the answers they want to hear; I think its plausable that if someone calls you and ask questions about the occupation that you would tend to say you support it.

The implication of this poll is that life is now good or better because of the U.S. invasion and occupation.

So the invasion and occupation are justified.

Life may be better, but it probably has a more to do with the efforts of the Iraqis that the U.S.

[drumwolf]

12. The *REAL* question: are AMERICANS better off because we invaded Iraq?

I say no. And that's all that matters.

Let's assume for the sake of argument that the poll is actually an accurate reflection of the sentiments of the Iraqi people. Great, I'd be happy for them -- but it's not our job to overthrow every single evil dictator who oppresses his people. It's our job to make our own people safe, and invading Iraq has not done that.

[leQ]

18. ditto that

i say if bu$h & co want to rule iraq so bad, let them all go over there and do it. this nonesense about leaving hundred thousand soldiers over there, nobody's botherd to ask the question: who would be giving orders to who? who's the one determining our engagement of those 'needed' forces? where the hell is the media on this?

[spanone]

13. Life in the US would be better without the bush* cabal.

[spanone]

14. Life in the US would be better without the bush* cabal.

[Layman]

15. Deutsche Welle Differs

The German National Broadcaster had a 30 minute special on Iraq today and it didn't jive with this poll at all. One man was going on about the security situation there or the lack of it. "Freedom? Freedom?" he asked. "Oh yeah, we can say anything we want but we have to be in our house by 8 it's so dangerous. This is freedom?"

[Barrett808]

16. Headline could just as well be: Only 1/4 of Iraqis believe US can deliver

Some 85 percent identified restoration of public security as a major priority, against 30 percent who wanted elections for a national government and 28 percent an economic revival.

Just a quarter said they had confidence in U.S.-led occupation forces to deliver their needs. There were far higher levels of confidence in Iraqi religious leaders (70 percent), local police (68 percent) and the new Iraqi army (56 percent).

Fifty-one percent were opposed to the continued presence of foreign forces in Iraq (news - web sites), against 39 percent who supported it.

[Barrett808]

17. NYT coverage: Ambivalence From Iraqis in Poll on War

Ambivalence From Iraqis in Poll on War
By THOMAS J. LUECK
Published: March 16, 2004

A nationwide public opinion poll of Iraqis a year after the American-led invasion found deep ambivalence about the invasion and occupation, but an upbeat sense among most that their lives were better than before the war.

Among the results was that more Iraqis polled said the United States was right to lead the invasion than said it was wrong - 48 percent to 39 percent, with 13 percent expressing no opinion. The poll was sponsored by ABC News and broadcasting networks in England, Germany and Japan.

Other questions about the invasion provoked more negative reactions, with 42 percent of the respondents saying it had liberated Iraq, and a nearly equal 41 percent saying their country had been humiliated. Fifty-one percent said they opposed the presence of the occupying forces, compared with 39 percent who said they supported the forces' presence.

The poll indicated that there was a more negative feeling toward the United States among Arab Iraqis, who account for 79 percent of the population, than among the far smaller Kurdish minority. Only 40 percent of the Arabs, compared with 87 percent of the Kurds, said it was right for the United States to invade.

(more)

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/16/international/middleeast/16SURV.html

[nolabels]

19. An open flame cooks better than a frying pan

http://www.occupationwatch.org/article.php?id=3548
Iraqi Family Teeters Atop Uncertainty
by By Anthony Shadid, Washington Post Foreign Service
March 14th, 2004
(snip)
She left her village and married at 12. Her crippled husband, wounded six times in Iraq's wars with Iran and the United States, died in a car accident during the holy month of Ramadan in 1996. She was evicted from one house, threatened with eviction from another. For a time, she sold gum from a canvas mat in the street.

That was before the war.

Part of Iraq's lost generation, Karima views change as a synonym for hardship. Her mantra is security and stability. They are what she has never had.

"The joy is gone," she said in February. "People have lost joy. It was stolen from us."

"If we were a poor country, no one would come here, no one would covet what we have," she said, her youngest son, 10-year-old Mahmoud, clinging to her shoulder. "But we're a rich country, and this is our fate."

In the early days of the occupation, as infrastructure collapsed, Karima said she fought with her neighbors. The same families who huddled with her in the darkened stairwell refused to help her draw electricity from another building. In June, she went to the family of her late husband along Abu Nawas Street, seeking money. They fought with her, then tried to get U.S. soldiers to arrest her. She looked for work at the city's main hotels -- the Palestine and the Sheraton -- but could not make her way through security.
(snip)

[Columbia]

20. Why not go to the source?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/nol/shared/bsp/hi/pdfs/15_03_04_iraqsurvey.pdf

[daleo]

21. Info on the polling company and methodology, from their website

"Oxford Research International provides a unique research facility in the transition economies of Central and Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Central Asia, China, South East Asia, and East Africa. Our mission is to guide our clients in their strategic planning."

"Oxford Research International is a Research Consultancy operated by a team who received their training in (Social) Research at doctoral level from the University of Oxford."

- so, they are Oxford alumni, but this is a private company, not part of the university.

- their list of clients is mostly big western news agencies and big western corporations.

For this survey, the sample frame and interview technique were given as:

Sampling
Oxford Research International plans to survey min. 2,500 respondents in all parts of Iraq.

Sampling will be based on a multi‑stage random probability routine. Each stage will target administrative sub‑units in the order of their size. Interviews will be allocated proportionate to population size (PPS). At settlement level, households will be targeted by random‑route, random‑interval procedures. Baghdad and Basra will be automatically included in the sample. All sampling is guided by the 2001 Statistical Abstract of Iraq (based on the 1997 census) and UN population data from January 2003.

Interviews and Quality Control
All interviews will be face-to-face in respondents’ homes. To ensure accurate targeting Oxford Research International operates a three call-back system and never replaces unavailable respondents within the same household. Oxford Research International will validate ca. 20% of all completed interviews (back-checks) and run elaborate checks on the data file (SPSS) to detect inconsistencies and emulated/fake interviews.

- The biggest methodological issues that I can see are that face to face interviews in respondents' homes could lead to selection bias (only those reasonably happy with the occupation are likely to agree to this) and a form of social desirability bias (when pollsters associated with your occupiers ask you questions you are quite likely to tell them what you think they want to hear, due to a desire to please and fear of negative consequences).

So, make of it what you will. I wouldn't get too excited about positive results under the circumstances.