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

[BitWhys]

my my...

Leaders' Views Out of Step With Public
By Amit R. Paley
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, September 27, 2006; A22

BAGHDAD, Sept. 26 -- 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.

"Majorities in all regions except Kurdish areas state that the Multi-National Force-Iraq (MNF-I) should withdraw immediately, adding that the MNF-I's departure would make them feel safer and decrease violence," concludes the 20-page State Department report, titled "Iraq Civil War Fears Remain High in Sunni and Mixed Areas." The report was based on 1,870 face-to-face interviews conducted from late June to early July.

The Program on International Policy Attitudes poll, which was conducted over the first three days of September for WorldPublicOpinion.org, found that support among Sunni Muslims for a withdrawal of all U.S.-led forces within six months dropped to 57 percent in September from 83 percent in January.

"There is a kind of softening of Sunni attitudes toward the U.S.," said Steven Kull, director of PIPA and editor of WorldPublicOpinion.org. "But you can't go so far as to say the majority of Sunnis don't want the U.S. out. They do. They're just not quite in the same hurry as they were before."

The PIPA poll, which has a margin of error of 3 percent, was carried out by Iraqis in all 18 provinces who conducted interviews with more than 1,000 randomly selected Iraqis in their homes.

Using complex sampling methods based on data from Iraq's Planning Ministry, the pollsters selected streets on which to conduct interviews. They then contacted every third house on the left side of the road. When they selected a home, the interviewers then collected the names and birth dates of everyone who lived there and polled the person with the most recent birthday.

Matthew Warshaw, a senior research manager at D3 Systems, which helped conduct the poll, said he didn't think Iraqis were any less likely to share their true opinions with pollsters than Americans. "It's a concern you run up against in Iowa or in Iraq," he said. "But for the most part we're asking questions that people want to give answers to. People want to have their voice heard."

The greatest risk, he said, was the safety of the interviewers. Two pollsters for another Iraqi firm were recently killed because of their work.

The State Department report did not give a detailed methodology for its poll, which it said was carried out by an unnamed Iraqi polling firm. Lou Fintor, a spokesman for the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, said he could not comment on the public opinion surveys.

The director of another Iraqi polling firm, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he feared being killed, said public opinion surveys he conducted last month showed that 80 percent of Iraqis who were questioned favored an immediate withdrawal. Eight-five percent of Sunnis in that poll supported an immediate withdrawal, a number virtually unchanged in the past two years, except for the two months after the Samarra bombing, when the number fell to about 70 percent, the poll director said.

"The very fact that there is such a low support for American forces has to do with the American failure to do basically anything for Iraqis," said Mansoor Moaddel, a professor of sociology at Eastern Michigan University, who commissioned a poll earlier this year that also found widespread support for a withdrawal. "It's part of human nature. People respect authority and power. But the U.S. so far has been unable to establish any real authority."

Interviews with two dozen Baghdad residents in recent weeks suggest one central cause for Iraqi distrust of the Americans: They believe the U.S. government has deliberately thrown the country into chaos.
The most common theory heard on the streets of Baghdad is that the American military is creating a civil war to create an excuse to keep its forces here.

"Do you really think it's possible that America -- the greatest country in the world -- cannot manage a small country like this?" Mohammad Ali, 42, an unemployed construction worker, said as he sat in his friend's electronics shop on a recent afternoon. "No! They have not made any mistakes. They brought people here to destroy Iraq, not to build Iraq."

As he drew on a cigarette and two other men in the store nodded in agreement, Ali said the U.S. government was purposely depriving the Iraqi people of electricity, water, gasoline and security, to name just some of the things that most people in this country often lack.

"They could fix everything in one hour if they wanted!" he said, jabbing his finger in the air for emphasis.
Mohammed Kadhem al-Dulaimi, 54, a Sunni Arab who used to be a professional soccer player, said he thought the United States was creating chaos in the country as a pretext to stay in Iraq as long as it has stayed in Germany.

"All bad things that are happening in Iraq are just because of the Americans," he said, sipping a tiny cup of sweet tea in a cafe. "When should they leave? As soon as possible. Every Iraqi will tell you this."

Many Iraqi political leaders, on the other hand, have been begging the Americans to stay, especially since the February bombing of a Shiite Muslim shrine in Samarra, which touched off the current round of sectarian reprisal killings between Sunnis and Shiites.

The most dramatic about-face came from Sunni leaders, initially some of the staunchest opponents to the U.S. occupation, who said coalition forces were the only buffer preventing Shiite militias from slaughtering Sunnis.

Mahmoud al-Mashhadani, the outspoken Sunni speaker of parliament who this summer said that "the U.S. occupation is the work of butchers," now supports the U.S. military staying in Iraq for as long as a decade.
"Don't let them go before they have corrected what they have done," he said in an interview this month. "They should stay for four years. This is the minimum. Maybe 10 years."

Particularly in mixed neighborhoods here in the capital, some Sunnis say the departure of U.S. forces could trigger a genocide. Hameed al-Kassi, 24, a recent college graduate who lives in the Yarmouk district of Baghdad, worried that rampages by Shiite militias could cause "maybe 60 to 70 percent of the Sunnis to be killed, even the women, old and the young."

"There will be lakes of blood," Kassi said. "Of course we want the Americans to leave, but if they do, it will be a great disaster for us."

In a barbershop in the capital's Karrada district Tuesday afternoon, a group of men discussed some of the paradoxical Iraqi opinions of coalition troops. They recognized that the departure of U.S.-led forces could trigger more violence, and yet they harbored deep-rooted anger toward the Americans.

"I really don't like the Americans who patrol on the street. They should all go away," said a young boy as he swept up hair on the shop's floor. "But I do like the one who guards my church. He should stay!"

Sitting in a neon-orange chair as he waited for a haircut, Firas Adnan, a 27-year-old music student, said: "I really don't know what I want. If the Americans leave right now, there is going to be a massacre in Iraq. But if they don't leave, there will be more problems. From my point of view, though, it would be better for them to go out today than tomorrow."

He paused for a moment, then said, "We just want to go back and live like we did before."

"every third house on the left side of the road". no wonder. they systematically ignored everybody on the sunny side of the street. too many lefties.

good thing its only the huddled masses. otherwise things would have to change.

 

[gopher]

Yes, the vast majority of Iraqis want Bush's occupational troops out of their land. But alas, they will stay as long as Halliburton profits from the war.

 

[gopher]

here's why Iraqis want the USA out of their land:

 

[Proud American]

here's why Iraqis want the USA out of their land:

TOo bad the pics of the slain American soldiers aren't here, showing the "pieces" of their bodies from being blown up.. Iraqis aren't the only ones who wants the U.S. out....THE AMERICAN PEOPLE want the U.S. out! If those people want to murder each other LET THEM, it is none of our concern. We have our own crisis here! People are killing each other in the streets of every major U.S. city in the MASSES...that is much more important to me than the Iraqis!! Those people don't know peace and the U.S. sure can't bring it to them......

 

[jimmoyer]

Of course we want the Americans to leave, but if they do, it will be a great disaster for us."
--------------------------FROM ARTICLE POSTED BY BITWHYS----------------------------------------

That sums it up beyond all the partisan spin.

Also you wonder how in the hell a poll gets conducted in Baghdad ? Or in the Anbar Province ?
Or why they seem to omit the Kurdistan area ?

You wonder a lot about the mechanics of such a poll ?
Dangerous ? Sloppy ? Capricious selections ?


Going by the tallied votes seems much more substantial.

 

[jimmoyer]

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]MSNBC.com[/FONT]
Al-Qaida in Iraq: 4,000 foreign fighters killed
Attacks urged during Ramadan in new tape purportedly from group's leader
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]The Associated Press[/FONT]

Updated: 1:17 p.m. ET Sept 28, 2006

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]BAGHDAD, Iraq - The new leader of al-Qaida in Iraq purportedly said Thursday in an audio message posted on a Web site that more than 4,000 foreign militants have been killed in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003 — the first apparent acknowledgment from the insurgents about their losses.[/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]“The blood has been spilled in Iraq of more than 4,000 foreigners who came to fight,” according to the Internet message by a man who identified himself as Abu Hamza al-Muhajir — also known as Abu Ayyub al-Masri — the leader of al-Qaida in Iraq. The voice could not be independently identified.[/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]The Arabic word he used indicated he was speaking about foreigners who joined the insurgency in Iraq, not coalition troops.[/FONT]


[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]‘Month of holy war’[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Al-Masri’s message also urged Muslims to make the holy month of Ramadan a “month of holy war” and urged insurgents in Iraq to kidnap Westerners. Al-Masri is believed to have succeeded Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who died in a U.S. airstrike north of Baghdad in June.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Al-Masri also called for explosives experts and nuclear scientists to join his group’s holy war against the West. He said U.S. military bases in Iraq were “good places to test your unconventional weapons, whether biological or dirty.”[/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Al-Masri urged Muslims to escalate their attacks during Ramadan, which Sunnis began observing in Iraq on Saturday and Shiites on Monday. He called on insurgents in Iraq to capture Westerners so they could be traded for the imprisoned Egyptian sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman, who was convicted in 1995 of conspiring to blow up New York City landmarks.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]“I appeal to every holy warrior in the land of Iraq to exert all efforts in this holy month so that God may enable us to capture some of the Western dogs to swap them with our sheik and get him out of his dark prison,” the voice on the tape said.[/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Al-Masri, a Sunni Muslim, has been relatively silent since taking over control of al-Qaida in Iraq earlier this year — a sharp contrast with al-Zarqawi, who frequently issued audiotapes and even a videotape that showed his face a few weeks before his death.[/FONT]


[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Spike of violence[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Meanwhile, police found 40 more bodies in the capital, and bombings and shootings killed at least 21 people in a spike of violence with the onset of Ramadan.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]A car bomb exploded near a restaurant in central Baghdad, killing five people and wounding 34, police said. Many of the injured had serious burns and some were not expected to survive, police Lt. Ali Mohsen said at the Kindi Hospital.[/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Although the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan is under way, some Iraqis — including Christians — are not abstaining from eating meals during daytime hours.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Two Iraqi soldiers were killed and 10 more injured when a suicide car bomb slammed into a checkpoint in northeast Baghdad, police said. The attack came in the Shaab neighborhood, one that just been cleared by U.S. and Iraqi troops as part of a security drive in the capital.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Iraq’s government warned residents that it will soon restrict vehicle access into the capital as part of a security crackdown targeting militants and death squads.[/FONT]



[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Mahdi army splintering?[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]The violence also came amid reports from a number of senior coalition military officials that a large and powerful militia run by radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr has been breaking apart into freelance death squads and gangs — some of which are being influenced by Iran.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Al-Sadr’s Mahdi army is one of the largest and most powerful militias in Iraq, along with the Badr Brigades, which were once the military wing of Iraq’s largest Shiite political group — the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq.[/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]“There are fractures politically inside Sadr’s movement, many of whom don’t find him to be sufficiently radical now that he has taken a political course of action,” said a senior coalition intelligence official who spoke to reporters in Baghdad on condition of anonymity because he was not permitted to speak publicly on intelligence issues.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]The official added that “there have been elements. I can think of about at least six major players who have left his organization because he has been perhaps too accommodating to the coalition.”[/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]On Sept. 22, al-Sadr urged his followers not use force against U.S. troops, saying “I want a peaceful war against them and not to shed a drop of blood."[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]But despite the splintering, the official said during a briefing Wednesday that al-Sadr still retains a strong organization modeled after Lebanon’s Hezbollah, which is led by Shiite cleric Hassan Nasrallah[/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]“His model for his activity remains Hezbollah. He’s attempted to reorganize at the district level to accommodate a more expansive framework of political, economic, welfare, religious, as well as military,” he said. “This is a very functional organization.”[/FONT]


[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Concerns over militias[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Al-Sadr’s ability to control his militia is important both to the U.S. military and an Iraqi government seeking to control and disarm militias and death squads blamed for thousands of sectarian killings in recent months.[/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]The second-ranking U.S. military commander in Iraq also said it was imperative to disarm militias, but that the Iraqi government must decide when it should be done.[/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]“We have to fix this militia issue. We can’t have armed militias competing with Iraq’s security forces. But I have to trust the prime minister (Nouri al-Maliki) to decide when it is that we do that,” said Lt. Gen. Peter Chiarelli, who oversees U.S. military operations in Iraq.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Iran has also sought to influence rogue or splinter elements that have broken away from the Mahdi army while it is still able to, the senior intelligence official said.[/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]“It wants control of surrogates, because remember, Iran only has a window of opportunity to influence Iraq before Iraq and its natural tendencies as both an Arab state and one who’s got a whole series of friction points with the Islamic republic will start to take order,” the official said.[/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]On Wednesday, the top U.S. military spokesman in Iraq, Maj. Gen. William B. Caldwell, said murders and execution-style killings were the No. 1 cause of civilian deaths in Baghdad. Much of the recent violence has been attributed to death squads, many of which are thought to be offshoots of Shiite militias like the Mahdi army.[/FONT]



[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]© 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.[/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15044435/[/FONT]

 

[#juan]

TOo bad the pics of the slain American soldiers aren't here, showing the "pieces" of their bodies from being blown up.. Iraqis aren't the only ones who wants the U.S. out....THE AMERICAN PEOPLE want the U.S. out! If those people want to murder each other LET THEM, it is none of our concern. We have our own crisis here! People are killing each other in the streets of every major U.S. city in the MASSES...that is much more important to me than the Iraqis!! Those people don't know peace and the U.S. sure can't bring it to them......

Let's try not to forget that the Americans were warned of the power vacuum and civil war that would ensue after Saddam was deposed.

Let's also not forget that Iraq was invaded because of lies and bull****.

Let's also not forget that permanent American military bases are being built right now and the U.S. has no intention of pulling out any time soon..

All else is BS.

 

[Curiosity]

Juan

I'm calling your remarks on that post. They were unnecessary and demeaning offering nothing but sarcastic fingerpointing.

What is even more unsettling Juan is your delight in the situation the U.S. has found itself in, the body count of the slain being a source of ridicule by your writing.

I don't know why you tick this way but it isn't healthy. Whether you like it or not Canadians still enjoy the friendship of their neighbor to the south. I hope it stays that way.

 

[I think not]

 

[Logic 7]

my my...

Leaders' Views Out of Step With Public
By Amit R. Paley
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, September 27, 2006; A22


"every third house on the left side of the road". no wonder. they systematically ignored everybody on the sunny side of the street. too many lefties.

good thing its only the huddled masses. otherwise things would have to change.

Iraqies are too stupid to know what they want, americans and the whole coalition does, after all iraq belongs now to us coorporation, so who cares of what iraqies think?

 

[Logic 7]

And polls predicted bush would win the election, polls predicted harper would win the election, of course americans denies polls, most of the polls are against their ideologies, however they are good when they fit perfectly.

 

[Logic 7]

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]MSNBC.com[/FONT]
Al-Qaida in Iraq: 4,000 foreign fighters killed
Attacks urged during Ramadan in new tape purportedly from group's leader
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]The Associated Press[/FONT]

Updated: 1:17 p.m. ET Sept 28, 2006

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]BAGHDAD, Iraq - The new leader of al-Qaida in Iraq purportedly said Thursday in an audio message posted on a Web site that more than 4,000 foreign militants have been killed in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003 — the first apparent acknowledgment from the insurgents about their losses.[/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15044435/[/FONT]

Start a new thread about it, what is the connection of this and the polls? and on top of it, you don't even put your opinion, are you trying to scare us?? do you really think peoples around the world are afraid of them, except americans?

i am not and never will, just for one reason, alqueada was initially founded by the CIA, this is enough to laugh at them.

 

[Curiosity]

My My Logic

You aren't really living up to your name....

 

[Logic 7]

TOo bad the pics of the slain American soldiers aren't here, showing the "pieces" of their bodies from being blown up.. Iraqis aren't the only ones who wants the U.S. out....THE AMERICAN PEOPLE want the U.S. out! If those people want to murder each other LET THEM, it is none of our concern. We have our own crisis here! People are killing each other in the streets of every major U.S. city in the MASSES...that is much more important to me than the Iraqis!! Those people don't know peace and the U.S. sure can't bring it to them......

Probably you are right, iraqie don't know peace, thanks to us foreign policy in the last 30 years to make it worst, and let me tell you , americans don't know more about peace, that is a just sad fact.



Slain american soldiers??if you don't want your soldiers to be slained, or being behaded, then learn the situation overthere before supporting illegal wars, you don't want to have dead soldiers, THEN DON'T SUPPORT ANY WARS, AND GO TO THE WHITE HOUSE , KICK THEIR BUTT, AND BRING THOSE IGNORANTS TROOPS HOME.

 

[#juan]

Juan

I'm calling your remarks on that post. They were unnecessary and demeaning offering nothing but sarcastic fingerpointing.

What is even more unsettling Juan is your delight in the situation the U.S. has found itself in, the body count of the slain being a source of ridicule by your writing.

I don't know why you tick this way but it isn't healthy. Whether you like it or not Canadians still enjoy the friendship of their neighbor to the south. I hope it stays that way.

Call all you want. Did I say something that wasn't true? No ridicule was intended, I merely pointed out that the war in Iraq was, and is, an unmitigated cock-up.

 

[jimmoyer]

I think we see some glee, justifiable in your view, at American pain.

 

[#juan]

I think we see some glee, justifiable in your view, at American pain.

There would only be "glee" if Bush were doing the suffering. Unfortunately, he's not.

 

[BitWhys]

Of course we want the Americans to leave, but if they do, it will be a great disaster for us."
--------------------------FROM ARTICLE POSTED BY BITWHYS----------------------------------------

That sums it up beyond all the partisan spin.

Also you wonder how in the hell a poll gets conducted in Baghdad ? Or in the Anbar Province ?
Or why they seem to omit the Kurdistan area ?

You wonder a lot about the mechanics of such a poll ?
Dangerous ? Sloppy ? Capricious selections ?


Going by the tallied votes seems much more substantial.

yes yes

I understand the White Man's Burden overrides any relevance of the Iraqi's thoughts on the matter.

You remember, of course, that for the vast majority a purple finger meant independence. those were the days. pity it didn't work out.

 

[jimmoyer]

LOL !!!

The White Man's Burden, Bitwhys ???

I'm not musing about the white man's burden.
Rather my post was wondering some legitimate questions
about a polling in a war zone.

And maybe some of the pollers
having the name of Omar would not be a good name to
carry in a Shi-ite neighborhood.

White Man's Burden is weighing on you.

LOL !!

Are you a white man ?

I know there aren't any black people on this board.

 

[BitWhys]

...I'm not musing about the white man's burden.
Rather my post was wondering some legitimate questions
about a polling in a war zone...

I'm not commenting on your non sequitur musings, I'm commenting on the single line you chose to cherry-pick out of the article.

Its not my problem if you fail to understand the historical reference.