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-- The Pulse of the Iraqi People One Year Later: Latest Poll Results
The Pulse of the Iraqi People One Year Later: Latest Poll Results
Well, given the fact that people are likely to miss this since it's not sensational journalism, I thought I would post it here to give everyone an update. Regardless about personal opinions on the road to war, this definetely looks to be good news, and it looks like Bremer is doing an excellent job with the resources that he has and the obstacles that are in his path.
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Survey finds hope in occupied Iraq Iraqis appear to be adjusting to life with an occupying force An opinion poll suggests most Iraqis feel their lives have improved since the war in Iraq began about a year ago. The survey, carried out for the BBC and other broadcasters, also suggests many are optimistic about the next 12 months and opposed to violence. But of the 2,500 people questioned, 85% said the restoration of public security must be a major priority. Opinion was split about who should be responsible, with an Iraqi government scoring highest. Creating job opportunities was rated more likely to improve security effectively than hiring more police. About 6,000 interviews were carried out in total, half in Autumn last year and half this Spring, in a project run by Oxford Research International (ORI). Seventy percent of people said that things were going well or quite well in their lives, while only 29% felt things were bad. And 56% said that things were better now than they were before the war. ORI's director Dr Christoph Sahm, said Iraqis trained as interviewers travelled around the country to speak to randomly selected people in their homes. The survey reflected Iraq's distribution of population, balance between men and women, and religious and ethnic mix. Dr Sahm said: "I would call it very extensive; It is a national survey and it is also representative... the key finding is that Iraqis don't want to break up the country." Meanwhile, an ICM poll of British attitudes about the Iraq war for BBC Newsnight's special programme, One Year On - Iraq, reveals that 48% of those questioned thought taking military action was the right thing to do; 43% thought it was not. There is an almost even split on whether the war was legal, while 34% of interviewees believe the war has contributed to the security of the UK against 55% who believe it has not. US 'will take heart' In the poll of Iraqis, nearly 80% favoured a unified state with a central government in Baghdad; only 14% opted for a system of regional governments combined with a federal authority. The majority was even bigger among Iraqi Arabs and Shia Muslims, but for the Kurdish minority, the situation was reversed, with more than 70% backing a federal system. There is an existing Kurdish regional government in the north, the powers of which were recognised by Iraq's interim constitution, signed last week. BBC diplomatic correspondent Barnaby Mason says the American and British governments will take some comfort from the results. The survey shows overwhelming disapproval of political violence, especially of attacks on the Iraqi police but also on American and other coalition forces. About 15% say foreign forces should leave Iraq now, but many more say they should stay until an Iraqi government is in place or security is restored. Looking back, more Iraqis think the invasion was right than wrong, although 41% felt that the invasion "humiliated Iraq". Safety conscious Dan Plesch, a security expert at Birkbeck college in London said that the poll was good news for the leaders of countries who began the invasion a year ago this week. IRAQI OPINION POLL  "This poll indicates that Iraqis strongly support a unified country with strong leadership. They don't want to see the country divided up and they don't want to see an Islamic government." Regaining security is rated as by far the highest priority at 85%, followed by holding elections for a national government (30%), ensuring the majority of Iraqis can make a decent living (30%) and reviving the economy (28%). And only just over a third of people report that their electricity supply is good. A key concern for the Americans as they prepare to hand over power in June is the unpopularity of the people they are putting in place. Leaders unloved Their favoured son Ahmed Chalabi had no support at all, while Saddam Hussein remains one of the six most popular politicians in the country. Dr Mustafa Alani of the Royal United Services Institute said that the Iraqis wanted a strong leader, but had not found one yet. "The main point is that the Iraqis are now looking for a strong leader who can save the day. "As long as the governing council is considered illegitimate and illegal in Iraq, I think they will have to work hard to find something more legitimate and more legal before they disengage from the country." http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3514504.stm |
Re: The Pulse of the Iraqi People One Year Later: Latest Poll Results
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| Originally posted by occrider Well, given the fact that people are likely to miss this since it's not sensational journalism, I thought I would post it here to give everyone an update. Regardless about personal opinions on the road to war, this definetely looks to be good news, and it looks like Bremer is doing an excellent job with the resources that he has and the obstacles that are in his path. Full results of the poll: http://news.bbc.co.uk/nol/shared/bs..._iraqsurvey.pdf |
what are you 2 years old?
Who gives a woop.
If Iraqi democracy is suceeding please keep it to yourself!
Hey guys I heard the French are scared shitless.. lets go bash them.
hehe, just saw this on bbc's site, good news 
yet 44% of the population had it better before the war... but of course considering how long time it has gone since the war was "over" that is a rather good amount of people
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| Originally posted by St_Andrew hehe, just saw this on bbc's site, good news yet 44% of the population had it better before the war... but of course considering how long time it has gone since the war was "over" that is a rather good amount of people |
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| "Asked how things were going in their lives these days, seven in 10 said the situation was very good or quite good, and only 15 percent said things were very bad. Looking ahead, 71 percent said they expected conditions in their lives to be much better or somewhat better a year from now." |
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| Originally posted by imokruok But, wait! That can't be right! The new PM of Spain said Iraq was a "disaster." |
The proves to me the old addage that "the proof is in the pudding." We can sit here and bitch about this and that in Iraq while we reside comfortably hundreds (or thousands) of miles (kilometers for you metric folks) away. However, to me the most important thing is how the Iraqis themselves feel. I think whether you are for or against the Iraqi involvement, you should at least feel good that so many Iraqis are optimistic about their future and about their condition today.
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| Originally posted by imokruok |
wait!!#@!# what?!?! iraqi people are better off now!?? bush must have rigged that poll!!
Now maybe all you democrats will realize how worthless your opinions are.
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| Originally posted by rainbow_marble Now maybe all you democrats will realize how worthless your opinions are. |
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| Originally posted by rainbow_marble wait!!#@!# what?!?! iraqi people are better off now!?? bush must have rigged that poll!! Now maybe all you democrats will realize how worthless your opinions are. |
Well, anyways, here's a differing viewpoint from that previous article Occ posted:
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| -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Posted on Wed, Mar. 17, 2004 Iraqis rue U.S. presence, tally instability, danger, hopelessness By Ken Dilanian Knight Ridder Newspapers BAGHDAD, Iraq - At least one very good thing has happened to the Saad family since the war changed their country forever last year. Thanks to the American policy of raising government salaries, their household income has increased by tenfold. For that reason alone, one might think the couple - Alla Saad is an Agriculture Ministry engineer and his wife, Iyman Mohammed, is a high school physics teacher - would be pleased with the way things have turned out. But that's not the case. "Now I will list the bad things," said Saad as he entertained two visiting Americans in his living room and served them cans of Pepsi. "There is no stability, there is no security, there is no clear future. Along with a feeling of humiliation." One year after American forces invaded Iraq and overthrew the regime of Saddam Hussein, the Saads' fears and complaints are one way to understand why many Iraqis haven't embraced the American-led occupation. A recent poll found 70 percent of Iraqis said their lives are better than they were before. But that optimism often is leavened by what many feel is the unsettled nature of their lives. "I don't think democracy can work here," said Mohammed, 41, a bright-eyed woman wearing a colorful headscarf. "Iraqis think democracy means anarchy, disorganization, everyone doing whatever he likes. This is not democracy." The Saads and their children - Hameed, 14, Mustafa, 12 and Ula, 7 - live in a two-bedroom brick house in Ghazaliah, a suburb northwest of Baghdad. He's a Shiite who bears shrapnel scars from his days as a tank commander in the Iran-Iraq war; she's a Sunni who clearly enjoys the newfound right to speak her mind. To understand their disillusionment, Mohammed said, consider that in the last month, 20 children have been kidnapped for ransom from the school where she teaches. This isn't a new story: Kidnapping is a growth industry in postwar Iraq. Most victims never report the crime to police - they simply pay anywhere from $3,000 to $50,000, depending on their means. And then there are the explosions. A few months ago, Hameed was cut in the head by flying glass when a police station near his school was bombed. A few days ago, bombers struck a Shiite mosque near their younger children's school, forcing the school to close for a week while the windows are replaced. Polls show most Iraqis believe crime has declined since the chaotic months after the war. But they still cite a lack of security as their top concern. Rapes, robberies, carjackings and murders remain epidemic. So, too, does a widespread feeling of lawlessness that can be almost as corrosive as the quiet terror once sown by Saddam's secret police. "Even at the school, we can't control the students," Mohammed said. "We fear that the student or one of his family may attack us if we fail him." Teachers aren't alone - factory bosses say they can't fire workers; hospital directors say they can't control their maintenance staffs; police are sometimes afraid to investigate serious crimes. Many Iraqis blame the United States for setting anarchy in motion, as they see it, by disbanding the Iraqi military and by failing to stop the widespread looting in the days after Saddam's regime fell. "It's not only the occupation," Mohammed said. "We lost security, a normal life." She says this even though, before the war, the family was barely eking out a living. They were among many middle-class Iraqis whose lifestyles were squeezed by Saddam's economic mismanagement and the international sanctions placed on Iraq after the 1991 Gulf War. By the end of Saddam's regime, Saad's salary had fallen to a measly 3,000 dinars per month - a little more than $2 at today's exchange rate. Mohammed's wages were about the same. Saad was forced to work a second job, sometimes as a taxi driver, sometimes selling fish. Saad had become disillusioned with Saddam even before the financial crunch, though. Having been wounded three times in the bloody Iran-Iraq war, he was stunned when the Iraqi dictator gave back all the territory that Iraq had won. "He threw away eight years of gains in war," Saad said. "At that time, we realized the war was a fake." Early last year, as it became clear the United States was poised to invade Iraq, Saad calculated that the Iraqi army wouldn't fight and that the regime would fall quickly. But nothing prepared the couple for the American tanks patrolling their neighborhood on April 10. They were glad Saddam was gone, but "we felt angry that our country was invaded and occupied," Mohammed said. Having sat through nights of earth-shaking bombings, they fled the neighborhood after hearing that the tanks were approaching. When they returned, they found that their house had been severely damaged by cannon fire. Parts of the roof and walls had collapsed. "Last summer was very hard," Saad said. "We spent many nights outside." Today, the couple earns about $570 per month because the coalition raised government salaries, which are paid for by a national budget composed of seized assets, oil revenue and U.S. aid. But that extra income hasn't improved their material lives by much. Much of the extra money goes toward repaying loans from relatives to repair war-related damage to their house. Their car is old and beat-up. In their modest family room is an ancient 13-inch television set, the only one they've ever owned. Electricity is still sporadic; they and their neighbors have pooled money to rent a huge generator that keeps power on most of the day. Like almost every Iraqi, they are incredulous that the coalition hasn't been able to fix Iraq's electrical system in a year. The local sewage pumps are broken, so foul water pools in the streets around their home. In their living room is a computer, a gift from a relative. Sometimes they access the Internet through a prepaid card purchased from a local provider, which puts them among the 3 percent of Iraqis who regularly surf the Web, according to polls. They are better informed than most Iraqis. Asked about the new temporary constitution and its Western-style bill of rights, Saad said he's most concerned about the language saying that Islam should be just one source for legislation, rather than "the primary source." Saad thinks it should have been the latter. They are ambivalent about the presence of U.S. troops. Mohammed says she thinks U.S. troops are needed to keep the country from slipping further into anarchy and sectarian violence, but Saad says attacks against U.S. troops are justifiable. "The invasion will not end without resistance," he said. http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansa.../printstory.jsp |
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| Originally posted by MisterOpus1 Well, anyways, here's a differing viewpoint from that previous article Occ posted: |
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| Originally posted by occrider I don't get it ... the author of the article is attempting to refute or diminish the statistical findings of the poll by giving us insight into the happenings of one Iraqi family? By that regard, I suppose I could refute the unemployment report by writing a peice on the hilton sisters showing how booked they are with work and that they're so filthy rich that they don't even need to work. |
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| Originally posted by MisterOpus1 Of course it was a mere case study view, and is a weak comparison to the posted recent statistics. Though some facts in the article about electricity, water, lawlessness, kidnapping, etc. I think are somewhat noteworthy. |
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| Originally posted by arctic Gee, you're an intelligent chap! Just out of interest, are you a fundamentalist Christian by any chance? |
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| Originally posted by MisterOpus1 You've posted some highly intriguing, thought-provoking, and wonderfully engaging posts here so far. No doubt, this is one of them. I thought I might counter with one of my own: Maybe all you hick Texan,ultra-conservative, highly-polluted, fundie dimwits can get your head out of your asses and buy a clue as to what your idiotic New England spoiled-brat wannabe-cowboy, ex-governor, corrupt, failed businessman panderer is actually doing to the rest of our country and the world. Or you can continue in your meager attempts to belittle opposing viewpoints in your Ann Coulterish, Nazi-like manner to further yourself in ridicule. Either way, I really don't give a f$ck. But I think everyone here, including those who may agree with you, might enjoy a more thoughtful engagement from you in the future. Cheers. |
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| Originally posted by rainbow_marble The poll in this thread is a direct result of what Bush did in the world, and it looks pretty good! Maybe you should look at all the good things he has done as the president instead of trying to blame everything on him when its clearly not his fault. |
I wonder what the real reason was to invade Iraq...
Because it won't be possible to leave the country without leaving a vacuum of force where the Iraquis will start to fight for leadership and slaughter themselves (like in Afghanistan after the retreat of the Soviets)!
And with the fact (i think the US are thinking about) to double the number of soldiers What is it all about??
There have to be "more" than the search for Saddam (who is already in prison) and Al-Quaida...
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| Originally posted by rainbow_marble As for this fellow... The poll in this thread is a direct result of what Bush did in the world, and it looks pretty good! Maybe you should look at all the good things he has done as the president instead of trying to blame everything on him when its clearly not his fault. |
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| Also, I wasn't trying to post something 'thoughtful', just wanted to get a rise out of you liberals. So I guess, uh, it worked? |
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| [i][b]Originally posted by imokruok |
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