IRAQI POLL RESULTS….A new poll has just been completed in Iraq and the results are not good:
The poll was conducted by the one-year-old Iraq Center for Research and Strategic Studies, which is considered reliable enough for the US-led Coalition Provisional Authority to have submitted questions to be included in the study.
….Saadoun Duleimi, head of the centre, said more than half of a representative sample – comprising 1,600 Shia, Sunni Arabs and Kurds polled in all Iraq’s main regions – wanted coalition troops to leave Iraq. This compares with about 20 per cent in an October survey. Some 88 per cent of respondents said they now regarded coalition forces in Iraq as occupiers.
….Respondents saw [Muqtada al] Sadr as Iraq’s second most influential figure after Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the country’s most senior Shia cleric. Some 32 per cent of respondents said they strongly supported Mr Sadr and another 36 per cent somewhat supported him.
68% of the country supports Sadr? Crikey. And this was before any of the Abu Ghraib pictures were released. Double crikey.
(Via Dan Drezner, who also has some comments.)
