An awkward poll: Were Iraqis better off when Saddam was in power?

[ecstatic]

All political correctness aside...

[Deja Q]

1. I dunno. I never will be an Iraqi citizen who had to live under him

Born and raised in America.

[ecstatic]

12. good point--I guess its hard to say from the outside looking in

But everyday I hear of power outages, bombings everyday (from insurgents and the USA), women losing rights, civil wars...

[stuartrida]

18. Has this ever been asked in a poll of Iraqis?

It seems like something worth asking.

[Book Lover]

2. I should think only an Iraqi would be equipped to thoughtfully reply

Not being one, I can't answer your poll.

[CJCRANE]

3. They're worse off

since the neocons dismantled their country.

[wakeme2008]

4. They had electric and water under him

and no Civil War.

[Totally Committed]

5. Ask the Iraqis.

My guess? -- They weren't in a civil war, they had electicity and running water, their kids went to school, women had more "rights"... I think they MIGHT tell you they were better off under Saddam.

Just a guess.

TC

[ChairmanAgnostic]

6. even today

15 yrs after the fall of the USSR, there are large minorities of people who believe that life was better under marxist leninist rule than it is under democracy. To be sure, the west has done little to help them become stable, and in fact, our behavior towards Russia and its former colonies has worse over the past 6 years, causing even more distress and trouble. 6 yrs. Hmm I wonder what happened 6 yrs ago.

This administration is a destroyer, not a builder. It causes strife, not prosperity. It rewards and coddles white collar criminals, and today's russia is being destroyed by their soulmates.


as for a saddamless Iraqnam? we never bothered to try to secure the peace once we beat down an army that had been beaten in Kuwait, destroyed over 12 yrs of international sanctions, and decimated in a bloody war with iran. We call that a US victory? To the contrary, we screwed the pooch and the Iraqis now suffer as a result.

[Fridays Child]

7. Iraqis are worse off, now, and that fact is a major indictment of Bush.

[Crunchy Frog]

8. I think it's pretty much incontrovertible

that by just about any measure, the Iraqi people are considerably worse off now than they were under Saddam. More violence and violent deaths, more children suffering malnutrition, less access to electricity and fuel, far greater restrictions on women, not to mention a nascent civil war.

Just because a dictator is brutal does not mean that there isn't potential for things to be much worse. * is doing his best to realize that potential in Iraq.

[ecstatic]

11. many Dems are terrified of saying this

That Iraqis are now worse off!

[Crunchy Frog]

14. It's sad that our party is so strongly ruled by fear.

I think the voters can smell fear, and that's one of the reasons our party is having so much trouble. If this war had been initiated by Democrats the Repukes wouldn't hesitate to say that the Iraqis had been made worse off.

[gula]

9. The women, in the cities anyway, certainly seemed to be MUCH

better off.

[Crunchy Frog]

15. That statement is intended as sarcasm isn't it?

Or are you confusing conditions in Iraq with conditions in Afghanistan?

[porphyrian]

10. How can any of us judge that?

What does "better off" mean in this context anyway? Most of us aren't even aware how bad some people live withing ten miles of our own homes, let alone thousands of miles away in a fucking desert. All this poll determines is what guess people will make given the options you've supplied.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

13. Some better off, some worse off.

I think there's little doubt that the Kurds of Northern Iraq are considerably better off with him gone, but further south it's more debateable.

I think that given that virtually all information coming out of Iraq will have some form of political bias, and there's no way of telling which does and which doesn't, it's impossible to form an informed opinion either way without sources which neither I nor most DUers have.

I would, however, caution DUers from letting their desire for Bush to have been proven as wrong as possible influence their opinions - something which I fear too many will do.

[Rex]

16. What percentage of the country had electricity and water under Saddam?

How many terrorist bombings were there under Saddam? Roadside bombs? Dictators suck. There is no getting around that one, but what is Iraq now? A dictatorship? An oligarchy? A theocracy? What?

Did we 'replace' Saddam with some form of better government?

[kellenburger]

17. out of the frying pan....

.. and into the fire.

[Nikia]

19. It probably depends on who they are

That is true in any regime change where government is by force and there is civil unrest. Some people were very unforunate during Saddam's dictatorship and some lost their lives. Many Iraquis lost their lives during the American occupation and many others have suffered hardship. Perhaps in time, things will stabalize and things will change for the better. Perhaps ironically, the U.S. military won't allow that. I don't know if completely letting them do it on their own is a good idea for the welfare of the majority of Iraqis. I think that perhaps having the U.N. involved instead of the U.S. would be the best thing to do with some kind of rebuilding plan that would truly benefit the Iraquis instead of exploiting them.