Polls in Iraq

I noted on a far-right blog the other day that, when describing the ongoing war in Iraq, the word occupation was continually used with quotation marks. Perhaps the authors of this blog think that Coalition troops are merely holidaying in the Gulf state.

In any case, the opinions of the Iraqis themselves count for far more than those of fundamentalist bloviators, and a good summary of Iraqi opinion polls can be found here.

A sample of the results follows:

A May 2004 poll sponsored by the US-led Coalition Provisional Authority found that roughly 80 percent of Iraqis had "no confidence" in US-led forces to improve security and that most "would feel safer if Coalition forces left immediately."


A year later, in August 2005, a secret poll conducted for the British Defense Ministry found that "less than one per cent [sic] of the population believes coalition forces are responsible for any improvement in security."

January 2006: A poll by the Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA) found that around two-thirds of respondents agreed that "'day to day security for ordinary Iraqis' would increase," that "violent attacks would decrease," and that "the amount of interethnic violence will decrease" if the United States withdrew by the summer of 2006.

March 2007: A poll sponsored by US, British, and German news agencies found that "[m]ore than seven in 10 Shiites-and nearly all Sunni Arabs-think the presence of U.S. forces in Iraq is making security worse.

August 2007: A poll sponsored by news agencies in the US, UK, and Germany found that around 70 percent of Iraqis "believe security has deteriorated in the area covered by the US military 'surge' of the past six months" Moreover, 67-70 percent "believe the surge has hampered conditions for political dialogue, reconstruction and economic development."

The result most favourable to the Coalition was a poll that showed 12% of Iraqis 'had at least some confidence in the Multi-National Force to protect their families against threats'.

Oh well. If the Iraqis aren't enjoying US militarist neoconservatism, perhaps they'd prefer US economic neoliberalism. After all, who wouldn't want to be a sub-sub-sub contractor in a war zone.