Dr. James Zogby: US bends statistical data on Iraqi surveysEarly in President Bush's recent public relations campaign to rebuild support for the US war effort in Iraq, Vice-President Cheney appeared on "Meet the Press." Attempting to make the case that the US was winning in Iraq, Cheney made the following observation:
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One of the questions it asked is: "If you could have any model for the kind of government you'd like to have" - and they were given five choices - "which would it be?" The US wins hands down. If you want to ask them do they want an Islamic government established, by 2:1 margins they say no, including the Shia population.
If you ask how long they want Americans to stay, over 60 per cent of the people polled said they want the US to stay for at least another year.
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For example, while Cheney noted that when asked what kind of government they would like, Iraqis chose "the US … hands down," in fact, the results of the poll are actually quite different.
Twenty-three per cent of Iraqis say that they would like to model their new government after the US; 17.5 per cent would like their model to be Saudi Arabia; 12 per cent say Syria, 7 per cent say Egypt and 37 per cent say "none of the above." That's hardly "winning hands down."
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When given the choice as to whether they "would like to see the American and British forces leave Iraq in six months, one year, or two years," 31.5 per cent of Iraqis say these forces should leave in six months; 34 per cent say a year, and only 25 per cent say two or more years.
So while technically Cheney might say that "over 60 per cent (actually it's 59 per cent) … want the US to stay at least another year," an equally correct observation would be that 65.5 per cent want the US and Britain to leave in one year or less.
http://www.gulf-news.com/Articles/Opinion.asp?ArticleID=100716
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