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The other day I posted a couple of polls comparing Iraqi and American public opinion. Those polls were just excerpts of a comprehensive poll of Iraqi’s conducted for ABC News, Interviews were conducted in person, in Arabic or Kurdish, among a random national sample of 2,228 Iraqis aged 18 and up from Feb. 12 to 20, 2008.

I wanted to give a further sampling of some of the polls results.

How has the security situation changed in the last six months?

How much confidence do you have in the various institutions responsible for providing security?

Here are just the February 2008 numbers, compared among the various institutions.

For each one, please tell me if you have a great deal of confidence, quite a lot of confidence, not very much confidence, or none at all?
Iraqi Army Police US Forces Local Leaders National Gov Local Militia
Great deal 28 33 4 12 17 7
Quite a lot 37 34 16 35 31 15
Not very 24 20 33 32 26 24
None 11 13 46 20 25 47

The Iraqi people have the most confidence in the national security forces. They have less confidence in the government. And even less confidence in the Americans or the militia.

It is extremely important to note that these polls were taken in the early/mid parts of February. This is before the Maliki government’s recent confrontations with the Mahdi Army in Basra and Sadr City and the even more recent moves against Al-Qaeda in Mosul. These moves have, I believe, had a major impact upon the Iraqi people’s view of the government, especially on Sunni views of the legitimacy of the government.

On the American Occupation Force

Should Sunni’s participate in the political process?

Would you move to another country if you could?

To put that number in context after four years of civil war, less Iraqi’s want to leave Iraq than the forty percent of Mexicans who would leave Mexico if they could.

Any Conclusions?

Not really. The numbers are all over the place.

61% say US presence makes things worse, 46% think the security situation would improve if the United States left, 38% want the US to withdraw immediately, and fully 20% blame the US for the security problems.

In 2004, positive support for the presence of coalition troops was at 39%. It has fallen to 26%. Conversely, in 2004 only 51% of Iraqi’s were definitely opposed to the US presence. That number has risen to 72%.

In 2004, only 17% said that attacks on coalition forces were acceptable. By August 2007, this figure had risen to 57%. It currently sits at 42%.