Abu Aardvark: "what the Iraqi people want" (not what bush says they do)

[BurtWorm]

http://abuaardvark.typepad.com/abuaardvark/2006/08/what_the_iraqi_.html

In yesterday's press conference, President Bush insisted that there would be no withdrawal of American troops from Iraq as long as he was president. He gave a long, scattered list of reasons. Among them was a claim put forward in a number of different ways that boiled down to this: "it's what the Iraqi people want."

Really?

Mark Tessler and Mansoor Moaddel recently released some of the data from their latest survey of Iraqi public opinion. As reported in US News, this survey revealed that

The growing sense of insecurity affected all three of Iraq's major ethnic and religious groups. The number of Iraqis who "strongly agreed" that life is "unpredictable and dangerous" jumped from 41% to 48% of Shiites, from 67% to 79% of Sunnis, and from 16% to 50% of Kurds. The most recent survey, done in April this year, also asked for "the three main reasons for the U.S. invasion of Iraq." Less than 2% chose "to bring democracy to Iraq" as their first choice. The list was topped by "to control Iraqi oil" (76%), followed by "to build military bases" (41%) and "to help Israel" (32%).

The survey also asked a direct question about the presence of American troops in Iraq (which for some reason was not included either in Kaplan's story or in the University of Michigan press release). Tessler kindly provided me with a short write-up of the data, forthcoming in the TAARI Newsletter. Here is Table 3, responses to the question "Do you support or oppose the presence of coalition forces in Iraq?"



The bottom line: 91.7% of Iraqis oppose the presence of coalition troops in the country, up from 74.4% in 2004. 84.5% are "strongly opposed". Among Sunnis, opposition to the US presence went from 94.5% to 97.9% (97.2% "strongly opposed"). Among Shia, opposition to the US presence went from 81.2% to 94.6%, with "strongly opposed" going from 63.5% to 89.7%. Even among the Kurds, opposition went from 19.6% to 63.3%. In other words, it isn't just that Iraqis oppose the American presence - it's that their feelings are intense: only 7.2% "somewhat oppose" and 4.7% "somewhat support."

Maybe there are reasons for keeping American troops in Iraq, but "it's what the Iraqi people want" really doesn't seem to be one of them.

[snappyturtle]

1. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. K&R nt

[Igel]

2. There was a survey released last winter that

had not dissimilar numbers.

But there was another question: Would you support an immediate withdrawal.

A majority of Kurds and Shi'ites said no, and a significant minority of Sunnis agreed. The only conclusion that could be drawn was that they didn't want them there, but didn't want them to leave just yet. Recently there were reports that Sunnis and Shi'ites reversed their relative positions, but, again, I didn't see the complete results.

Actually, there were a number of questions which, quoted in isolation, would have predicted results of other questions quite at variance with the actual results. So it was most useful to look at the range of questions and the range of responses.

I assume this survey had a similar question, but I couldn't find the complete results.

[Name removed]

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[Name removed]

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[Jacobin]

4. Too bad the media won't discuss this

Its outrageous the media won't mention this.

Its treasonous that the media suppresses this vital information.

[Canuckistanian]

6. Wow, 97.9% of Sunnis oppose the troops

Those are unheard of numbers, considering that the MOE is usually around 3%.

Those 2.1% must work in the Green Zone or something.

[BurtWorm]

7. kick

[BurtWorm]

8. Kick