Poll: More Californians Favor Troop Pullout

[The Straight Story]

Poll: More Californians Favor Troop Pullout
Written by Elizabeth Bishop, Senior Internet News Producer

A growing number of Californians believe U.S. troops should leave Iraq, according to a poll released Wednesday.

Of the people surveyed in The Field Poll, 65 percent some kind of withdrawal -- 39 percent favor full withdrawal, 26 percent want partial withdrawal. That compares to 52 percent of Californians who were surveyed two years ago.

The survey finds voter support for withdrawing troops has increased across all partisan groups. Two years ago, 71 percent of Democrats favored a withdrawal policy. Now, 82 percent do. Sentiment for withdrawing troops has increased among Republicans, from 26 percent to 40 percent over the same period. Among people who say they are non-partisan, 66 percent favor withdrawing some or all troops, up from 56 percent two years ago.

The war in Iraq is continuing to take a toll on President Bush's approval numbers in California. Three times as many California voters rate Bush's handling of the Iraq situation negatively (72 percent) as positively (24 percent). Only about 9 percent of California Democrats approve of the way Bush is handling Iraq, while 90 percent disapprove. Republicans are more evenly divided, with 49 percent disapprove and 46 percent approve. About 74 percent of independent voters give Bush poor marks on Iraq, while just 19 percent approve.

http://www.news10.net/display_story.aspx?storyid=31617

[skip fox]

1. Please send links on Iraqi data to me at site below to have real stats

on the war so I can add to the below. Reply to thread:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x1593570


This is primarily a list of hot links DUers can use to put the "surge" in perspective by giving valuable data on the war, it costs in lives, blood, and treasure for both the Americans as well as the Iraqis and contractors. PLEASE SEND MORE LINKS AND I WILL ADD THEM and periodically repost this document in expand form. It sould be easy to use.

Prelminary important data from http://icasualties.org/oif / (see below).

Deaths: | US/UK | Iraqi

9/06   | 75   | 3539
10/06  | 108  | 1539
11/06  |  76  | 1864
12/06  | 113  | 1752
1/07   |  86  | 1802
2/07   |  84  | 3014
3/07   |  84  | 2977
4/07   | 116  | 1821
5/07   | 129  | 1980
6/07   | 108  | 1345
7/07   |  88  | 1690
8/07   | 45+ | 599+ (and over 200 yesterday)

(Iraqi deaths are civilians and soldiers.)

NOTE: Whereas American deaths declined by nearly 21 deaths from the average of the previous two months (128 & 108) the Iraqi deaths increased by almost 20 deaths from the average of the previous two months (1,345 & 1,690), which makes the overall killing pretty level from May to the present.




LIST OF LINKS TO STATISTICS


CAUSUALITY STATS:



Iraq Coalition Casualty Count provided the list at the top of this page and is a great first place to go for reliable data

http://icasualties.org/oif /


It has a number of tables charting such things as numbers of deaths (by time and country) medical evacuations (by service), wounded (by week), and so forth. A Great site for collecting initial stats. It also contains links to fatalities and injuries by state, services, etc., and one to contractor causalities.



Military Deaths in the Conquest of Iraq

http://www.ac.wwu.edu/~stephan/USfatalities.html

Provides two fine graphs showing number of US deaths since March 2003. One is a bar graph giving a month-by-month number of killed. The top one shows the total number of deaths which notes several relevant historical occurrences.



US Causalities in Iraq

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ops/iraq_casualties.htm

Provides a table for a month-by-month list of the numbers of US dead and wounded and two bar graphs below it which the some information in visual form. (Herein you can note that some of the summer months have had the fewest causalities. It's probably has hard to kill in 114 degree heat as it is to do anything else.)





OVERALL STATS:


From the Saban Center for Middle East Policy, Brookings' The Iraq Index
http://www.brookings.edu/iraqindex
attempts to provide "a statistical compilation of economic, public opinion, and security data. . . . updated information on various criteria, including crime, telephone and water service, troop fatalities, unemployment, Iraqi security forces, oil production, and coalition troop strength." It has hundreds of graphs in a month-by-month statistical assement of the war in pdf. format which provide very nuanced (and valuable for someone willing to dig) including such things as numbers of Iraqis and foreign nationals kidnapped, reporters killed, deaths from multiple-causality bombs, estimated strength of insurgency, etc. Extremely valuable!


Asia Times on Line's article ("Dispaches from America: Escalation in Iraq by the Numbers") by Tom Engelhardt
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/IH15Ak03.html
Provides a list of numbers of troops, attacks, contractors, companies, prisoners, electrical blackouts as well as such things as projected costs, temperatures, availability and cost of water, Iraqi government stats and amount of oil, etc. In short, although is not presented in tables or graphs, it provides data to help determine the total context of the war. A very valuable collection of information that will aid to see the full picture.






STATS ON IRAQI RESOURCES:

The Oxfam Report on Resources Iraqi resources
http://www.oxfam.org.uk/resources/policy/conflict_disasters/bp105_iraq.html
provides a list of list of percentages related to the current conditions for Iraqi citizens concentrating on the availability of food, water, sanatation, shelter and so forth as well as their employment figures.




Thanks to all who have provided links. Please send more. I'll annotate (as above) and add. Think of the value of the following types of information:
# of Iraqi refugees leaving country
# of Iraqi refugees internally displaced
# of IED attacks on American/Coalition Forces
# of Iraqis kidnapped and tortured, found dumped

DU's gratuitous intelligently realizes the value of "numbers for things like reliable electricity, schools and hospitals that an American would recognize as open for business. . . ."