Moonbats infiltrating Iraq

Most Iraqis Favor Immediate U.S. Pullout, Polls Show

A strong majority of Iraqis want U.S.-led military forces to immediately withdraw from the country, saying their swift departure would make Iraq more secure and decrease sectarian violence, according to new polls by the State Department and independent researchers.

In Baghdad, for example, nearly three-quarters of residents polled said they would feel safer if U.S. and other foreign forces left Iraq, with 65 percent of those asked favoring an immediate pullout, according to State Department polling results obtained by The Washington Post.

Another new poll, scheduled to be released on Wednesday by the Program on International Policy Attitudes at the University of Maryland, found that 71 percent of Iraqis questioned want the Iraqi government to ask foreign forces to depart within a year. By large margins, though, Iraqis believed that the U.S. government would refuse the request, with 77 percent of those polled saying the United States intends keep permanent military bases in the country.

The stark assessments, among the most negative attitudes toward U.S.-led forces since they invaded Iraq in 2003, contrast sharply with views expressed by the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. Last week at the United Nations, President Jalal Talabani said coalition troops should remain in the country until Iraqi security forces are “capable of putting an end to terrorism and maintaining stability and security.”

“Only then will it be possible to talk about a timetable for the withdrawal of the multinational forces from Iraq,” he said.

Recent polls show many Iraqis in nearly every part of the country disagree.

Something has to be done about this. Maybe we need new pollsters. But in any case, don’t tell Brewfan about this; it’s really “not in step.”

Comments

  1. Jillian wrote:

    Who is “Brewfan” anyway?

    Posted 27 Sep 2006 at 2:00 pm

  2. commissar wrote:

    He’s a commenter at Ace of Spades HQ who chastised guest-blogger Michael for linking to my 3 officers post.

    Posted 27 Sep 2006 at 2:02 pm

  3. Carrick wrote:

    Actually what the data really say (if you look at them instead of the narrative) is that the US regular army is making things worse there. Adding more regular troops is would be a terrible mistake, IMHO. Pretty much a point I made in another comment.

    The only way out is by “holding the course”, keeping our current force levels & training the Iraqi security forces until they are ready to take over for us, make it clear to them we will leave when we are through, then when we are through, leave.

    Your regular army generals you keep quoting & propping up are experts at running over people with tanks and smashing enemy armies, not making friends and favorably influencing people. They are the wrong tool for the job.

    Posted 28 Sep 2006 at 5:55 am

  4. wolfwalker wrote:

    Oh, please. Commissar, when did you start trusting polls done with unknown methods by unknown groups with no reputation? How many times have blogs like Powerline and Captain’s Quarters and Mystery Pollster ripped apart opinion polls done in this country by “reputable” polling firms and shown how the pollsters can bias the answers just by careful selection of the question wording and the poll sample? You think they’re any more honest in Iraq? Or that the WaPo, whose editorial staff is openly antiwar and anti-Bush, would allow an honest appraisal of the poll results to reach its readers?

    I haven’t trusted the results of any poll on any subject in several years. You shouldn’t either.

    Posted 28 Sep 2006 at 7:14 am

  5. DavidC wrote:

    I agree with Carrick. Adding more U.S. troops is not going to happen and at this point would be counterproductive. It would undermine the Iraqi government, demonstrate that we’ve been lying about the growing effectiveness of the Iraqi military/security forces, and create more resentment among those Iraqis who already see the U.S. presence as an occupation.

    We need to focus on continuing to train the Iraqis to fight their own war. Unfortunately that is going to take more time, more money, and more casualties. But in my opinion there isn’t another good alternative.

    Posted 28 Sep 2006 at 8:19 am

  6. commissar wrote:

    Carrick,

    If you want to deny that we need more troops, right now, to secure Baghdad and al Anbar province, I can’t persuade you of anything.

    No one, including the 3 generals, wants more troops to run over people with tanks and smash enemy armies. Counterinsurgency methods are quite the opposite, but they are labor-intensive.

    (I don’t want to make a personal attack here, and I guess I should charitably assume that you have missed my numerous posts about counterinsurgency techniques and my criticism of “smash ‘em up” generals like Ray Odierno, but … your comment really doesn’t reflect at all what I’ve advocated.)

    Posted 28 Sep 2006 at 8:41 am

  7. commissar wrote:

    wolfwalker,

    You don’t believe polls? The consensus of polls done in the week before the Nov. 2004 election were within a point or two of the actual results.

    Capt Ed and Powerline have been joined by Atrios in denouncing unfavorable polls, invariably because of perceived sampling bias. (”Not enough Reps/Dems in this sample .. *snort*”) It’s a bogus argument. The pollsters get a sample that is demographically representative (age, sex, geography, etc.) and then ask “self select your party.” Those percentages vary. I know you’re a scientific guy. Check this topic out. Honest, it’s no-brainer.

    Posted 28 Sep 2006 at 8:45 am

  8. wolfwalker wrote:

    Commissar,

    No, I don’t believe polls. I distrust all polls as a matter of course. I have a passing acquaintance with statistics, and most polls I look at have visible mistakes in either the sampling, the questions asked, or the analysis applied afterwards. Even pollsters who are trying to be honest often get it wrong. When I consider that many pollsters aren’t trying to be honest, I can’t see any reason to believe a word they say.

    Consider, for example, a poll that made the news a few weeks ago, about American attitudes toward evolutionary theory as compared to other countries. I took the time to drill down through links at Panda’s Thumb and elsewhere to get at the actual poll questions and answers. What I found was that the poll actually exposed Americans’ ignorance about evolution. The poll questions included two that were directly contradictory — no one should have answered yes to both. At least two percent of the respondents did exactly that. Yet the poll analysis focused on the respondents’ acceptance of evolutionary theory, not their understanding of evolutionary theory. These are two different topics.

    I really stopped trusting polls several years ago, when I realized that the standard “President’s approval rating” number that is reported so often in the news is reported in a basically slanted and misleading way. It simply says X% of people disapprove of the president’s performance. It never says why they disapprove. If you listen to mainstream media, you’d get the idea that all of the 60% or so of people who disapprove of Bush’s performance do so because they think the Iraq war was a mistake, and Bush has been too aggressive about fighting terrorism. How many of those 60% disapprove of Bush not because they think he’s been too aggressive against islamist terrorism, but because they think he hasn’t been aggressive enough? You might find that out by looking at raw polling data, but you’ll never find it out by reading mainstream media articles on polls.

    Posted 28 Sep 2006 at 9:26 am

  9. wolfwalker wrote:

    Oh, one other thing. You wrote:

    The pollsters get a sample that is demographically representative (age, sex, geography, etc.) and then ask “self select your party.” Those percentages vary.

    Indeed they do. However, over time the pollsters (if they’re honest) should be able to get a baseline average for party affiliations nationwide and within any specified region and/or demographic. If a poll claims to be nationwide but produces a party-affiliation ratio that differs by five or ten points from the established national averages, then my BS-meter goes off.

    Posted 28 Sep 2006 at 9:34 am

« Ray Odierno to return to Iraq
How about those Wolf Brigades? »