Why have there been no polls of Iraqis?

[Onlooker]

The latest poll on can find on Iraqi sentiment is from 2004:

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2004-04-28-poll-cover_x.htm

Are there later polls? If not, why not? Are we preventing polling companies from surveying the Iraqis?

It seems to me the only way to get an honest sense of how things are going for the Iraqi people is to poll them. Otherwise, everyone's impressions are tainted by politics and dishonest media coverage.

[jody]

1. Polls of Iraqis are not publicized because they're unfavorable to Dubya.

[Ravenseye]

2. No theyr'e going on, just tough to find

like this one...

http://www.iprospect.org.uk/Attitudes%20Towards%20Democracy.pdf

which shows that 75% of Iraqi university students view democracy positively and 58% believe Iraq will be a democratic state within 5 years.

[evermind]

7. Interesting doc..

the poll data in it is from December 2004 - January 2005, it says, though it also cites polls from earlier in 2004..

I found it fascinating to read in the rear that the body sponsoring the work is a "non-partisan group ... established in January in 2002 by a group of Iraqi exiles in London" to promote democracy in Iraq.. I'm not saying this is a front group or anything, but one doesn't get much of a feeling that they would have been opposed to the war.. ;-)

[KG]

3. who cares what the people who actually live there think?

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

4. They don't read the scrpt and they answer honestly.

[H2O Man]

5. Simple.

Saddam was a brutal dictator, and the terrorists hate freedom. Hence, the Iraqi people are not able to speak for themselves. Thus, Dick Cheney is best able to speak for them.

[evermind]

6. The latest one I could find is from Jan 23, 2005

The results are reported at http://www.zogby.com/news/ReadNews.dbm?ID=957 with perhaps the single most important one being: "Majorities of both Sunni Arabs (82%) and Shiites (69%) also favor U.S. forces withdrawing either immediately or after an elected government is in place."

I'd guess wartime Iraq probably presents some logistic difficulties for polling companies - I wouldn't fancy wandering around Baghdad or Falluja with a clipboard just now.. But I also doubt whether they'd get much encouragement from the green-zone Government - the results would likely continue to show how unpopular the US and its stooges there are.

As I understand it, the largest part of the election vote in January went to parties who were intending to timetable US withdrawal, which intention didn't materialise. I doubt this has since become a non-issue for the Iraqi man-in-the-street.