% Iraqis Who Oppose US Presence has Spiked 51 to 65% (ABC Poll)

Three Years Later, On the Eve of the Iraqi Elections

ABC News, in partnership with Time magazine, the BBC, Japanese news service NHK and Germany's Der Spiegel newspaper, sponsored a rare and exclusive nationwide poll in Iraq. Conducted by Oxford Research International, the poll of 1,711 Iraqis represents a true nationwide survey of Iraqi opinion.

Only 44 percent of Iraqis say they believe things are going well in their country; 52 percent said they felt the country was "doing badly." Support for the U.S.-led invasion has dropped: In February 2004, 39 percent of Iraqis told us they believed the invasion was wrong, but today that number stands at 50 percent. Even among optimistic Iraqis it appears the U.S. gets little credit for any improvements in their lives. Fewer than one in five Iraqis believes that U.S. reconstruction efforts have been "effective." Most Iraqis now say they "disapprove strongly" of how the U.S. has operated in Iraq. Not surprisingly, the percentage of Iraqis today who oppose the U.S. presence has spiked — from 51 percent to 65 percent.

Virtually all signs of optimism vanish when one is interviewing Iraq's Sunni Muslims. There's more on this in the Local Government section of the report; suffice for now to cite a pair of poll results. While 54 percent of Shia Muslims believe the country is in better shape than it was before the war, only 7 percent of Sunnis believe the same. Optimism about security — 80 percent of Shias and 94 percent of Kurds say they feel safer — is absent among Sunnis. Only 11 percent of Iraq's Sunni Muslims say they feel safer than they did under Saddam.
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/12/12/72250/649
http://abcnews.go.com/International/IraqWhereThingsStand/story?id=1378209

They're just ingrates who don't appreciate that we're there "helping" them by destroying their country, killing and torturing their citizens, installing a puppet government, and fomenting a civil war. Just like all those Europeans who didn't appreciate the installation of German culture back in '40s.

Yuk.

Iraqi who would say things are "going well" in the country. That 44% number is complete bullshit. They must have actually asked those people "Do you agree that things are going to hell in your country?"

Re this:

Only 44 percent of Iraqis say they believe things are going well in their country

Who in their right mind would think things are going well in their country under the conditions that we see and hear about everyday? And we don't even see the half of it!




Cher

on edit: BBC is interviewing Sadam Pax (sp?), the Baghdad Blogger, about this survey. Oxford Research (conducted the study) is being asked where they conducted the poll now. The BBC interviewer seems incredulous re the above posted results.

Out of 200 originally trained for the survey, 50 researchers were retained and sent out into the field. There was no protection for the survey workers as they did the questionnaire.

Earlier, it was remarked that the higher figures had something to do with not being conscripted for military service.

82% of households were home and were willing to answer the questions.