Do Iraqis want the US/UK forces to stay?

I want to recapitulate that part of the findings of the Oxford Research International poll that I cited yesterday, here and here, that concerned the attitudes of Iraqis toward the continued presence of the US/UK forces in their country.
I also want to experiment with composing off-line and then uploading the text into the blog. Why not? (I’ve had bad problems with trying to do it before now; but I’m planning a different approach today.Update: Still problematic. *sigh*)
So anyway, as I wrote yesterday, the question of whether Iraqis consider the presence of the occupation-power forces to be helpful or detrimental to their sense of security and wellbing is an important piece of information.
Yesterday, I wrote that I was glad that ORI had provided the evidence for that. But the issue is not quite simple, since no version of the question, “How do you view the impact that the US/UK forces have on your sense of security and wellbeing?” was directly put to the respondents.
What we had, instead, was the respondents revealing some aspect of their views on this issue slightly indirectly, in their answers to two of the other questions that were posed:
First, when asked to describe the degree of trust that they had in a long list of institutions in the country, one of the institutions was “The US and UK occupation forces”. That question revealed that 78.8% of respondents had “Not very much” or “None at all”, while 21.2% said they had “A great deal” (7.6%) or “Quite a lot” (13.6%).
Second, (although I think in the way the questionnaires were administered, this came prior to the other question), people were asked to provide their own, singular response to the Question, “What would be the worst thing that could happen to you in the next 12 months?” Presumably, the kinds of answers that people actually gave to that were aggregated somewhat. But it is still notable that in response to a free-form question like that, 15% of respondents answered with (some version of) “Occupation forces will not leave Iraq”, while 0.6% answered with some version of “American forces leaving Iraq”. A wide range of other types of answer were also, of course, given there.
So, we have a ratio of 15.0 to 0.6, that is 25 to 1, of people thinking US forces staying to US forces leaving is the one worst scenario they can imagine. This is, of course, highly suggestive of the way all of opinion might break down on the issue. And it certainly accords with the general trend of the responses in the “trust/distrust” section, except that there the ratio of “lots of trust” answers to “little or no trust” answers was 3.7 to 1, not 25 to 1.
In addition, in the question regarding the “one worst thing”, I note that 84.4% did not express themselves one way or the other on the question of the staying or leaving of the US/UK forces. So obviously we cannot say flat-out that the 25-to-1 ratio represents the whole of Iraqi opinion. What we can say is that the evidence strongly suggests that Iraqis would prefer to see the withdrawal of the occupation forces and to face whatever followed that in their own way, rather than to have the occupation forces stick around. And despite the generally low levels of social trust revealed in some of the data, the strength of the belief expressed that some indigenous form of democracy could work for them was impressive, and would back up the supposition that they see a way to resolve their internal problems among themselves, rather than relying on the US/UK forces to solve them for them.
That’s great! Bring the troops home!
I note, too, that new data from polling inside the USA that was carried out by the Program on International Public Attitudes at the University of Maryland, also accords with this view. In releasing the resukts of the new poll, PIPA Director Steve Kull said, “A very strong 71% said the UN should “take the lead to work with Iraqis to write a new constitution and build a new democratic government”–up from 64% in June
and 50% in April. Just 26%, in the current poll, say the US should take the lead.”
By the way, yesterday I noted that I felt a little intimidated by all the copyright notices attached to the portions of the report that ORI had sent me. But to make things as easy as possible for you, I suggest you click here to send them an email and request your own copy.

19 thoughts on “Do Iraqis want the US/UK forces to stay?”

  1. The impression I get, from this and other opinion polls in Iraq (for example the YouGov one) is that the majority of Iraqis:
    – welcome the end of Saddam’s regime
    – question the motives of the US/UK (most think the invasion was for other reasons than to help the Iraqi people)
    – don’t have a very high opinion of the CPA
    – want the US/UK forces to remain until adequate Iraqi security forces are put in place, but no longer
    – want a democratic form of government, probably with some sort of Islamic flavour (I don’t mean an Islamic state, I mean something like the position of Christianity in the govmt of the USA, or Judaism in Israel)
    (This is the first time I’ve read your blog, Helena, and I’d like to let you know that I think it’s well-written and I’m recommending it on my blog.)

  2. Don’t you think that we need to take all opinion polls coming out of Iraq with a grain fo salt?

  3. What forms did these responses take, whose gist was “Occupation forces will not leave Iraq?” Primary material (or at least a link) would be useful.
    Phil, it seems to me you are spot on with the general attitudes of the Iraqis, as expressed by this and earlier polls.
    Helena — I think a premature withdrawal in Iraq would be a humanitarian catastrophe — I doubt you’d disagree. My question to you is: at what point would you determine Iraqi security forces to be adequate to the task of policing the fledgling state?

  5. Hi all– great to hear from new readers! Welcome! Thanks for the verbal bouquets!
    Theo– I read these polls, as all polls, with some skepticism. But the ORI folks seemed to have done just about the best job possible– 60 hrs of training for questionnaire administrators, good supervision, good sampling methods, etc etc…. So it’s kind of the best we’ve got, thus far.
    Alex, I can’t provide a link, for the copyright reasons mentioned. *sigh*
    In addition, I think I might well not agree with you about the risk that “premature” withdrawal would lead to a humanitarian catapstrophe. For one thing, who gets to make that judgment about “premature”? I believe it’s one we should leave to the Iraqis to make. So the basic issue for them is, presumably, whether they think that the presence of the occupation forces contributes to or detracts from their overall sense of security and wellbeing… Doesn’t seem as if many of them are prepared to say that the presence is helpful.
    I don’t know if you’ve read the next post down (this one), but there I had actually discussed this issue a bit more, drawing on some of my experience looking at the same exact question raised during Israel’s broad occupation of much of Lebanon 1982-85…
    I think Iraqi self-government is THE top priority. (And I’m assuming you’re in agreement there?) How to get there from here? Almost impossible to see this achieved so long as the idea is to have the US/UK forces–being seen, apparently, by most Iraqis as themselves a cause for threat and instability– being in charge of “security” during the transition… That is why putting the UN in overall charge during the transition is, imho, the only way. Unless, of course, George Bush had the vision wisdom and foresight of Frederik De Klerk, which I heartily doubt…

  6. I guess one problem with relying on polls is that inconsistent methods will from time to time produce contradictory or inconclusive results. According to an earlier poll “only 17 percent of the 1,100 people interviewed for the poll between June 8 and 10, wanted the US troops to quit Iraq immediately.” (AlJazeera.net) A slim majority wanted the US to stay until such security is established to guarantee a fair election. This November Gallup poll (pdf: http://www.cpa-iraq.org/audio/20031111_gallup-iraqi-police.pdf ) suggested that 85% of Baghdad residents “believe anarchy would result if the United states were to pull out its troops any time soon.”

  7. Self-government is certainly the top priority; few would disagree with you on that score. However I think it is obvious there are forces within Iraq opposed to representative government, and willing to kill their own countrymen to impose their brand of leadership on the balance of the population there. The general fear of Americans (and a fair number of Iraqi bloggers) favoring a measured withdrawal, is that the competing militias would kill each other if the US, or at the very least an armed division of UN troops, were not in place to supervise transfer of a sufficiently structured and cohesive authority as to resist infighting, without paving the way toward some Saddam-like autocrat’s ascension. This doesn’t mandate a secular or even a fully representative democracy, just a government that conforms to a reasonable standard of broad self-representation, that will not descend into bloody civil war or fascist dictatorship the second the US leaves.

  8. Gratitude for the removal of Saddam– most Americans cannot appreciate– is tempered by the belief amongst Iraqi intellectuals that he would not have been in power had it not been America’s interest and insistance that he stays there. And, gratitude is also tempered by the fact that the American presence is downright dangerous. Weekend soldiers with families and businesses back home on their minds are awfully jumpy and quick on the trigger– in no way as layback as GIs got to be in Vietnam. Lastly, the long hiatus until means began to appear for the rebuilding of Iraq (for months colonels were using opewrating funds and their own cash as best they could) caused a lot of big promises to go empty for some time. Worst still, since the infrastructural civilian operation was not clear until the big contractors showed up, still more promises were broken and a lot of people no longer seemed as in-charge as they claimed to be early on.
    Rumsfeld really screwed up trying to do it big and then switching to doing it big on the cheap day by day. There was no appreciation of indignation as there had been obsessively of “face” in Vietnam. Many people were insulted and humiliated; in the Mideast that’s very bad wounds to bear….But again the “we’re so wonderful” Americans failled to see things as they were and still can’t tie all that in to the easy traffic of guerrillas among the people. The Vietnam lessons seem long, long, very long forgotten.

  9. Helena– do you ralize what “democracy” will bring? The Ho Chi Minh Trail was noting compared to the Iran-Iraq border– I saw for myself. Iran is working very qietly. So, come “democracy” and Shi’ite THEOCRACY is inevitable. That’s why all the Arabs in the region– even the Israelis– felt more comfortable with Saddam in power, as did America. Bush will curse the Neocons for duping him into this totally uncontrolable mess!

  10. DE, hi– It’s nice to have your voice and yr experience here.
    If you cruise around in this blog a bit (and the best way, really, is to use the ‘Search’ box, which brings up clickable excerpts for any terms you might put into it), you’ll discover I’ve written a lot of things along the lines you mention. For example, if you go to this (not brilliantly copy-edited)post, Oct.29, you’ll find I wrote:
    “…did anyone in this administration even bother to look at a map of the Gulf region before they cavalierly sent so many US troops so deep into Iraq?
    If they had, they might just have happened to notice a couple of things:
    (1) Much of Iraq is desert. But there’s a band of heavily populated areas that runs fairly close to the country’s eastern border.
    (2) The other side of that eastern border lies Iran, a huge, well-infrastructured country of roughly 65-70 million people.
    (3) Many roads link the two countries. Their people share many attributes (and in some cases come from the same families.)
    (4) The USA is an awful long way away from Iraq. Getting American people or American military stuff into Iraq is incredibly difficult: by air, it’s horrendously expensive, by sea/land, it’s incredibly complicated w/ bottlenecks all along the way.
    Need I say more?
    I guess when they dreamed up this sick adventure, the Wolfies and Pearls and feiths of this world imagined that Ahmed Chalabi was going to take over and run Iraq, seamlessly, based on all the much-vaunted “supporters” he had inside the country. He would then give basing rights to the US military who, instead of having to sit around pacifying Iraq could then proceed with Stages 2 and 3 of their fiendish plan which were directed at effecting “regime change” in Iran and Syria…
    Well, it hasn’t quite worked out that way, has it?”
    Actually, I don’t have such an intense fear of Iraqi democracy as you seem to. Iran’s political system is itself in a situation of challenge and change right now. For their part, most Iraqis seem to have a fairly robust idea of (1) their separateness from Persian society, and (2) their Iraqi-ness. Iran is not going to be able to “rule over” Iraq even to the extent that Syria finds itself able to “rule over” Lebanon (which is anyway limited.)
    But the main thing I feel, as a US citizen, is that it is pure arrogance for our government to feel that IT has any right to determine the course of events in what at a very basic level are OTHER PEOPLE’S COUNTRIES. That is a grossly anti-democratic and unrealistic notion.

  11. Helena, the pro-war people would counter that Iraqis have not had a hand in their own governance for so long that ‘sovereignty’ as defined by “government by consent” lacks application. Unrealistic it may be to attempt to impose a constitutional democracy — anti-democratic it is NOT.
    The US should not be singly responsible for reforming totalitarian states everywhere they occur — that role ideally would be undertaken by institutions like the UN. My question in this case is, why didn’t they??

  12. Helena, can i just say how much i enjoyed reading your piece. It’s not often you find an article that combines understanding and a sense of humour. It was a pleasure to read. However, within the comments section the discussion which is going on seems to my mind to be too hypothetical. Of course it is important to try and predict what will happen if/ when the US pull out, but not at the cost of forgetting what is happening now. Alex seems to be suggesting that the US pulling out will lead to an outbreak of hostilities, without realising that hostilities have broken out. The problem as i see it is that the US force does not have as its prime aim the r3edevelopment and security of Iraq. The question is, who does?

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