Iraqi Sentiment After 5 Years? Maybe not...

With the 5-year anniversary of the beginning of US involvement in Iraq falling this week, Michael J. Totten discusses the perils of public opinion polling in Iraqi society.  Having visited Iraq on numerous occasions, Totten comments on the recent, 17 March, poll published by ABC News.  Conducted in collaboration with the BBC, the German television station ARD and Japanese station NHK, the poll expresses an air of overall success.  But, as Totten wisely suggests, this must all be taken with a fairly large grain of salt.  

Conducted through face-to-face interviews with 2,228 Iraqi adults, there was a reported overall 2.5 point error margin, with the use of oversampling in the following areas:

•Mosul and the Anbar province, which are predominately Sunni

•Kirkuk, which is Kurdish

•Sadr City (Baghdad) and Basra City, which are mainly Shi’a

The poll claims overall positive findings for the past six months in terms of security gains.   These levels of sentiment regarding security, how the individual lives of the Iraqis are and prospects for the next year, however, are low in comparison to polls conducted in 2005. 

In addition, the poll cites the opinions on greater economic improvements experienced in Iraq are comparable to the opinions found on security.  

In terms of American popularity and support for American involvement, the analyses accompanying the poll explained that when asked about the institutions that have made positive security gains, the outlook is not in the favour of the US.  The vast majority of Iraqis claim it is their own institutions which have produced these outcomes.  However, the number of Iraqis who believe that the United States should withdraw now has fallen, indicating that many Iraqis believe the United States can play a major role in enhancing security and combating Al-Qaeda, which was cited as the most popular reason for a continued US presence. 

Both Totten and John Burns from the New York Times, however, caution that intimidation has likely skewed the entire polling process.  As Totten claims, he ultimately cannot speak for the entire population, as he has never met with the insurgents, however, he does not believe that the poll accurately reflects the entire spectrum of the population.  

         Although Al-Qaeda is the obvious extreme, there are many other groups which fall along the spectrum of Iraqi politics.  It is highly unlikely that the opinions of those sampled include many with more extreme views, thus resulting in a biased sample.  The sectarian and ethnic differences, however, are respected and noted, lending some more credibility to the entire study, with results reported from the Kurdish, Sunni and Shi’a populations.

The significant issue that Totten addresses is the different answers that respondents can give when asked by different people.  When talking to them face-to-face, the answer is likely to change depending on what will happen to the information. “A single individual may tell me that he supports the American military presence, and the very same day tell a pollster that he opposes the American military presence.”  This is what Totten and Burns mean by intimidation.  As these reporters are often accompanied by armed forces, the Iraqi is afraid that a negative response will elicit actions against them.  If this information goes into a public forum, a positive response to American intervention will make them fearful of retaliation by the insurgents.  This is what Totten hopes to tell the reader when he says that, "I often suspect Iraqis tell me what they think I want to hear.  What they're really doing, more than anything else, is telling me what they want me to hear.  The difference is subtle, but crucial."