Poll: Broad Optimism in Iraq, But Also Deep Divisions Among Groups

Surprising levels of optimism prevail in Iraq with living conditions improved, security more a national worry than a local one, and expectations for the future high. But views of the country's situation overall are far less positive, and there are vast differences in views among Iraqi groups — a study in contrasts between increasingly disaffected Sunni areas and vastly more positive Shiite and Kurdish provinces.

Specifically, 26 percent of Iraqis say U.S. and other coalition forces should "leave now" and another 19 percent say they should go after the government chosen in this week's election takes office; that adds to 45 percent. Roughly the other half says coalition forces should remain until security is restored (31 percent), until Iraqi security forces can operate independently (16 percent), or longer (5 percent).

National leaders with the greatest trust include the current prime minister, Ibrahim al-Jaafari (15 percent), Allawi (15 percent) and Kurdish leader Jalal Talabani (10 percent), with others in single digits. But al-Jaffari also comes up as No. 1 on the don't-trust at-all list, at 12 percent. Such is politics.

This survey was sponsored by ABC News with partners Time, the BBC, the Japanese network NHK and the German newsmagazine Der Spiegel, with fieldwork by Oxford Research International. It consists of in-person interviews with a random national sample of 1,711 Iraqis from early October through mid-November.

http://abcnews.go.com/International/PollVault/story?id=1389228

"...but Also Deep Divisions Among Groups."

You can't have both "deep divisions among groups" and "broad optimism." "Broad" indicates that all groups agree, which belies the second statement of deep division.:crazy:

Take the Kurds out of the equation and you have a different result.

“Large majorities of Iraqis - 69 percent of Shiites and 82 percent of Sunnis - want U.S. soldiers to get out of Iraq quickly, according to an Abu Dhabi TV/Zogby International poll earlier this year. Over half of Sunnis considered insurgent attacks to be a legitimate resistance to U.S. presence. This follows polling last year that showed that 71 percent of Iraqis considered U.S.-led forces ‘occupiers’ rather than ‘liberators’.”

http://www.zogby.com/Soundbites/ReadClips.dbm?ID=11353

This is typical half truths from our whore media

but ok, let the media paint whatever. If that is the case, then BRING THE TROOPS HOME RIGHT AFTER THE ELECTION!!!

I woke up to the BBC news on the radio, and the commentator was breathlessly reporting about the "widespread optimism" from this poll. The funny thing is that they got some "regular Iraqi guy" on the phone from Baghdad, and asked him how he felt. He said that things weren't good at all where he was in Baghdad or anywhere in central Iraq. So they cut him loose so the commentator could resume his breathless report about how Iraqi's are doing "so much better now" because, he said, cell phones were owned by 65% of the people now, compared to "only 5% under Saddam!" No mention was made, of course, that the wired phone network still lay in shambles from when we destroyed it.