| So TV images can mislead.
Do we really have any insight on the attitudes and opinions
of Baghdad residents who stay in their homes, away from
the cameras?
Probably no truly random polls of Iraqi
opinion are being conducted these days. Iraq’s
official newspaper, Al Thawra, reported a poll taken
in 2002 in which Iraqis chose Osama bin Laden as their
“2001 Man of the Year.” But a CNN report
on that poll’s sample revealed weird data —
30 percent men and 40 percent women — raising
questions about what other genders there may be. A majority
of respondents were students (54 percent), leaving working
folk in the minority.
Could a serious, American-style telephone
poll be taken in Iraq? Not really, because only 3 to
4 percent of Iraqi households have a phone, the same
as in the United States in 1910, and less than half
the current 10-percent international figure for home-phone
use. A United Nations study says that more than 400,000
phones were knocked out by the first Gulf War, but the
CIA Fact Book says there are at least 675,000 lines
today — and our forces don’t seem intent
on knocking them out.
That’s not much of a phone system
to work with, but it’s a start if someone cared
to try polling along the Tigris. In a way, someone already
has. Recent news reports said Palestinian groups adopted
the moral equivalent of “negative push polling,”
reportedly placing random telephone calls to Iraqi homes
after the invasion began, voicing solidarity and brotherhood
in their opposition to American war aims.
Meanwhile, in the absence of reliable
current poll data, I examined the up-and-coming alternative
of Internet polls, cruising through Iraqi websites,
rejecting those that seemed to have an extreme bias
one way or another in their polls and postings.
Because Iraq has little Internet access,
most web voters are probably Iraqi expatriates, but
it’s most likely the best data we can get under
the circumstances. I settled on Iraq.net, Iraq4u.com
and iraqipapers.com to get a flavor of Iraqi thought.
Here are some tantalizing Iraqi poll results:
• How long will it take American
troops to take down the Iraqi leadership? Days, 3 percent;
weeks, 30 percent; months, 39 percent; years, 27 percent.
• Will Iraqis welcome the American
occupation as liberation? Yes, 36 percent; no, 54 percent;
unsure, 10 percent.
• Will Iraqis celebrate in the streets
when Saddam is gone? Yes, 63 percent; no, 32 percent;
unsure, 5 percent.
• About the 1998 U.S. Iraq Liberation
Act (which expressed the sense of the U.S. Congress
that Saddam must be replaced by a transition to democracy):
Support it totally, 29 percent; support it, but don’t
like outsider interference, 5 percent; don’t support
it because the interference of outsiders and the American
government is very hardly to be trusted, 62 percent;
haven’t decided yet, 4 percent.
• Should the Baath party be banned
after removal of Saddam’s regime? Yes, 74 percent;
no, 19 percent; don’t know, 6 percent.
• How are you dealing with the crisis?
Prayer, 32 percent; being optimistic, 31 percent; less
news, 12 percent; exercise, 5 percent; other, 20 percent.
• Future Iraqi constitution? Totally
secular, 23 percent; secular, but cannot contradict
Islam, 75 percent; Islamic, 2 percent.
• Which of these values comes first
to you? My homeland, 42 percent; religion, 38 percent;
ethnicity, 4 percent; political party, 2 percent; other,
13 percent.
• After Saddam, I expect Iraq to
have: democracy, 38 percent; civil war, 21 percent;
religious rule, 10 percent; breakup, 8 percent; who
knows, 22 percent.
It’s a mixed bag, as you can see.
There is a lot of persuasion to be done to overcome
Iraqi suspicion of American aims. And for democracy
to function, more work needs to be done to bridge divergent
opinions. Uncertainty and discouragement are notable.
Pondering a post-Saddam Iraq, a Georgetown University
professor recently speculated, “A thousand people
selected at random from the Baghdad phone book would
be a better alternative” to run the country than
the existing government bureaucracy. Maybe we’ll
soon get a chance to see if that’s true.
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