Media reports treated a recent poll of Iraqis, commissioned by the BBC, ABC News and others, as the population's definitive word on the war. "Iraqis happier without Saddam" trumpeted headlines, in response to the claim that 57 percent think life is better now than it was before the war. The poll of 2,737 Iraqis was carried out in February by Oxford Research International (ORI), which describes it as "a national survey" and "representative."
US President George W. Bush's official blog gave it an approving nod: "Thanks to the bravery of our troops, and the principled, consistent leadership of our president, we are leaving Iraq better than we found it."
But how representative of Iraqi views is it? Western companies have conducted polls, but their findings are unconvincing. In October Zogby International and the American Enterprise magazine said they had conducted "the first scientific poll of the Iraqi public." Yet their sample was small: 600 Iraqis in Basra, Mosul, Kirkuk and Ramadi.
Polling in any post-war setting is difficult, and there are additional problems in Iraq. The UN says there is "a dearth of demographic information about Iraq's population over the past several decades." As a consequence of Baath party secrecy, questions remain about the distribution of ethnic and religious groups and social classes. Iain Murray, a statistician based in Washington, says that for a poll to be representative, "matching the sample to the country's demography is absolutely key. Otherwise, you simply cannot be sure that you are not weighting the sample unconsciously towards or away from any section of society."
So how did ORI weight its sample for class and religion, to achieve results that, according to the BBC, "reflected Iraq's distribution of population, balance between men and women, and religious and ethnic mix"? It didn't. Director Christoph Sahm said it was weighted by governorate (Iraq's 18 regions), by distribution between urban and rural areas, and by age. So there was no weighting by social factors? "How would you do that?" he says.
"How would you know what the breakdown is? No one knows," he said.
Doesn't this present a problem for pollsters -- that "no one knows" the basic facts about the make-up of the Iraqi population? In ORI's poll, 44 percent identified themselves as Sunni Muslim and 33 percent as Shia -- yet, according to other accounts, Sunnis are a minority and Shias a majority. Sahm says this disparity is not a result of unconscious weighting, but of "prestige bias" by Iraqis. "In Saddam's Iraq, Sunni was seen as more prestigious than Shia."
If a large number of respondents answered questions about religion according to what was "prestigious," perhaps they answered others according to what was previously expected -- that you should give a positive appraisal of the powers-that-be. Sahm says the poll was representative because it was "entirely random" and that every resident aged 15 or over had an equal chance of being selected.
Working from the 1997 census and, where possible, from UN data, ORI targeted administrative units in descending order of size, and allocated interviews in each unit proportionate to population size.
On the ground, households were targeted by "random route, random interval procedures."
Yet such polls require good demographic material from which to select -- ideally a census. The 1997 census is widely viewed as being of poor quality and covered only 15 of Iraq's 18 governorates, excluding those that had become autonomous Kurdish territory in 1991; it was conducted during the era of sanctions; and seems to have been a bit of a rush job.
It remains questionable whether you can conduct a representative poll in a country that lacks demographic data and where instability is rife. ORI's poll does not cover all aspects of postwar Iraq. It asks whether Iraqis have had an encounter with coalition forces, and when they think they should leave, but it does not ask about their day-to-day experience or political view of the occupation. Sahm says "there was no room for that," and some media groups that commissioned the poll "did not want a question about the occupation."
Many of the media reports about "happy Iraqis" focused on question two, which asked: "Compared to a year ago, I mean before the war in spring 2003, [how] are things overall in your life?": 21.9 percent said "much better now," 34.6 percent said "somewhat better," 23.3 percent said "about the same," 12.7 percent said "somewhat worse," and 5.9 percent said "much worse." This is where the headline figure of 57 percent comes from -- those who reportedly think Iraq is a better place.
Yet on the specifics, Iraqis appear less optimistic: when asked about their neighborhoods, 68.6 percent think the availability of jobs is bad, compared with 25.6 percent who think it is good, 64.4 percent think the supply of electricity is bad, while 34.9 percent think it is good, 50.1 percent think the security situation is bad, compared with 48.9 percent who think it is good. A majority believe public provision has at best remained the same, or got worse; only on security and crime do most think there has been an improvement.
The poll also fails to take into account the UN's lifting of sanctions in May. These restricted access to food, medicine and basic materials. Perhaps it was the end of sanctions, more than the end of former president Saddam Hussein, that improved Iraqis' "day-to-day lives."
Some poll findings were ignored. Asked which Iraqi leader they "do not trust at all," 10.3 percent said Ahmed Chalabi, compared with only 3.3 percent for Saddam. A large majority, 62 percent, think that "dealing with members of the previous government" should be "no priority at all." But will the coalition cancel plans for war crimes trials? This poll does not show that "the Iraqi people have spoken," but that many westerners continue to speak on their behalf.
Brendan O'Neill is assistant editor of Spiked.
In recent weeks, Taiwan has witnessed a surge of public anxiety over the possible introduction of Indian migrant workers. What began as a policy signal from the Ministry of Labor quickly escalated into a broader controversy. Petitions gathered thousands of signatures within days, political figures issued strong warnings, and social media became saturated with concerns about public safety and social stability. At first glance, this appears to be a straightforward policy question: Should Taiwan introduce Indian migrant workers or not? However, this framing is misleading. The current debate is not fundamentally about India. It is about Taiwan’s labor system, its
Minister of Labor Hung Sun-han (洪申翰) on April 9 said that the first group of Indian workers could arrive as early as this year as part of a memorandum of understanding (MOU) between the Taipei Economic and Cultural Center in India and the India Taipei Association. Signed in February 2024, the MOU stipulates that Taipei would decide the number of migrant workers and which industries would employ them, while New Delhi would manage recruitment and training. Employment would be governed by the laws of both countries. Months after its signing, the two sides agreed that 1,000 migrant workers from India would
Japan’s imminent easing of arms export rules has sparked strong interest from Warsaw to Manila, Reuters reporting found, as US President Donald Trump wavers on security commitments to allies, and the wars in Iran and Ukraine strain US weapons supplies. Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s ruling party approved the changes this week as she tries to invigorate the pacifist country’s military industrial base. Her government would formally adopt the new rules as soon as this month, three Japanese government officials told Reuters. Despite largely isolating itself from global arms markets since World War II, Japan spends enough on its own
On March 31, the South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs released declassified diplomatic records from 1995 that drew wide domestic media attention. One revelation stood out: North Korea had once raised the possibility of diplomatic relations with Taiwan. In a meeting with visiting Chinese officials in May 1995, as then-Chinese president Jiang Zemin (江澤民) prepared for a visit to South Korea, North Korean officials objected to Beijing’s growing ties with Seoul and raised Taiwan directly. According to the newly released records, North Korean officials asked why Pyongyang should refrain from developing relations with Taiwan while China and South Korea were expanding high-level
RSS