Harry, this is indeed interesting. But given it comes from American Enterprise Institute, even the Zogby name attached to it becomes suspect. If the WSJ had partnered with the Wilson Institute, for example, it would present a more balanced inclination. Since Bush2 desperately needs good news from Iraq, skeptics must exercise the eyebrow here and hold this at length for awhile.
David Brooks wrote in sympathy to this idea, however, in today's NYT, also citing the Zogby poll. See Caught in the Iraqi Dramatics @ http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/23/opinion/23BROO.html?hp Much remains to be done; all is not lost, except for America's credibility and two generations' worth of savings and hard work down the drain. As has been said, the other night when the President spoke to the nation and attached an $87 Billion price tag to the misadventures in the desert, those who will be paying for it had already been sent to bed by their parents. Adding insult to injury, by obligating ourselves to this misbegotten foreign policy whirlpool, we will lose debt reduction momentum, fall further behind on our own infrastructure needs, including education investments in K-12 and college. The cost of war in not being able to address the real and future problems at home? Priceless. We can not do this alone, it is foolish to try to do so. Yet, witness today's events. I'm going to rant here. If Bush had instead addressed himself seriously to the problems in Israel and Palestine after 9/11 instead of fools gold in Baghdad, there might have been more progress towards lasting peace there and defused anti-Americanism in the Middle East. What was the harm in trying? But that is not what the Oil Aristocracy and Christian Zionists embedded in Bush2 want, a lasting solution of peace in Israel. The CZ's don't want a truce or peace, they want a complete conquest by Israel so that the Second Coming can happen, and the Likudists are glad to oblige them in this zealotry. The Oil Aristocracy wants full control of the Iraq region, or as others have said, exercising "compassionate colonization". In the meantime, let the military industrial complex thrive with our technological-weaponry links to Israel since we have been investing in their economy forever. Here are a few items to consider from something I posted elsewhere a few weeks ago: The Wall Street Journal joins the NYT and other major newspapers presenting the details that the public has the right to know. It's about time. Transcribed from The Oregonian, News Focus page A6, September 10, 2003: Adding up the costs of the Iraq war Military operations: $65.5 billion which includes: Comparisons $51 B for Iraq, $11 B for Afghanistan, including: Within the federal budget the $87 B is equivalent to: $32.3 B for "operating tempo" or the pace of the operation in terms of equipment usage 4 % of the proposed budget for the 2004 FY $18.5 B in military personnel costs 11 % of proposed discretionary spending $1.9 B for new and replacement equipment 20 % of nonmilitary discretionary spending Iraq reconstruction: $20.3 Billion 163 % of discretionary spending on education $5 B for security, including: $2.1 B for the new Iraqi army and civilian defense corps Other wars and post-conflict efforts:* $2.1 B for border enforcement, police, fire and customs Marshall Plan: $100 billion $15 B for infrastructure, including: Postwar Japan: $19 billion $6.0 B for electric power World War 2: $4.9 trillion $3.7 B for water and sewage Vietnam: $600 billion $2.1 B for oil 1991 Persian Gulf War: $84 billion $800 M for transportation and communications US share: $6.4 billion $500 M for housing, public buildings, roads and bridges Kosovo (to date): $9 billion Afghanistan reconstruction: $800 million * Figures are approximate and adjusted for inflation.[PARA]Sources: White House, Congressional Research Service, Coalition Provision Authority and Defense Dept documents provided by congressional sources. New York Times News Service Paying the bills: Some of the monthly costs of peacekeeping, rebuilding and running Iraq, in millions of dollars* Keeping 129,000 troops in Iraq $3,900 Food aid $200 Iraqi salaries and pensions $190 Operations of Iraq's ministries $143 Oil-field work $141 Capital improvements of Iraq's ministries $101 US-funded contractors $100 * Figures are for 2003 only and include funds from US appropriations, Iraqi oil reserve and seized assets. Sources: Pentagon, Coalition Provisional Authority, The Wall Street Journal Oil Reserves: forecasts were based on conservative exports, prices Salem Chalabi, a member of the Iraqi Governing Council's finance committee, says the pessimistic formulations for oil revenue now expressed by Iraqi officials in Baghdad are based on conservative assumptions about export levels and prices. The officials say revenue could amount to as little as $7B instead of the $12B to $14B hoped for by some in the US coalition. Meanwhile, Iraq could need as much as $20B for reconstruction. Coalition officials continue to struggle to boost Iraq's oil exports, its only real domestic source of revenue. But despite progress this summer, Iraqi and American engineers are still well behind meeting expectations raised immediately after the war. At current export rates, Iraq may have trouble making forecast oil revenue of some $3.45B for the second half of this year. Current production capacity stands at about 1.8 million barrels a day, down from about 2.5 million before the war. With domestic consumption at about 500,000 barrels a day, about 1.3 million barrels should be available for export each day. But the pipeline in Iraq's northern fields, which pumped about 40% of the country's oil before the war, has bottled up output there. Meanwhile, erratic power has showed exports from Iraq's southern fields in recent weeks. Things have improved since earlier this summer, when exports were essentially nonexistent. In August, initial data suggested exports of as much as 600,000 to 800,000 barrels a day. But to make the high end of coalition estimates for oil revenue in 2004, Iraq will have to boost average exports for the year to 1.5 million barrels a day and realize an optimistic price of $25 a barrel. Most analysts expect crude oil prices to fall from currently lofty levels near $30 a barrel, especially if Iraq increases output. That sort of export level appears difficult to achieve, especially after recent attacks against the oil infrastructure. A large explosion ripped through a crucial pipeline that links Iraq's northern fields with the Mediterranean just days after the line started pumping again. Other explosions along the pipeline, all blamed on sabotage, have clouded repair estimates. The Pentagon already has spent about $705 million on oil field repairs, part of $1.14 billion committ4ed through March. The US point man for Iraqi oil, Philip Carroll, said final costs could be higher. "I'm not going to be surprised if there's some creep," Carroll said in a recent interview. Just keeping oil field going is expensive. One extensive report prepared before the war estimated the Iraqi Oil Ministry's annual expenses, including maintenance, operating costs and administrative overhead, could total about $3B a year. Even with optimistic forecasts, expected oil revenue won't be able to cover these costs and other larger reconstruction commitments at the same time, analysts warn. - The Wall Street Journal See Costs of War @ http://www.costofwar.com/ See Congressional Quarterly @ www.cq.com for growing lack of support by GOP lawmakers for the Iraq war WHAT IRAQIS REALLY THINK By Karl Zinsmeister ARTICLES - Wall Street Journal, Publication Date: September 10, 2003 America, some say, is hobbled in its policies toward Iraq by not knowing much about what Iraqis really think. Are they on the side of radical Islamists? What kind of government would they like? What is their attitude toward the U.S.? Do the Shiites hate us? Could Iraq become another Iran under the ayatollahs? Are the people in the Sunni triangle the real problem? Up to now we've only been able to guess. We've relied on anecdotal temperature-takings of the Iraqi public, and have been at the mercy of images presented to us by the press. We all know that journalists have a bad-news bias: 10,000 schools being rehabbed isn't news; one school blowing up is a weeklong feeding frenzy. And some of us who have spent time recently in Iraq--I was an embedded reporter during the war--have been puzzled by the postwar news and media imagery, which is much more negative than what many individuals involved in reconstructing Iraq have been telling us. Well, finally we have some evidence of where the truth may lie. Working with Zogby International survey researchers, The American Enterprise magazine has conducted the first scientific poll of the Iraqi public. Given the state of the country, this was not easy. Security problems delayed our intrepid fieldworkers several times. We labored at careful translations, regional samplings and survey methods to make sure our results would accurately reflect the views of Iraq's multifarious, long-suffering people. We consulted Eastern European pollsters about the best way to elicit honest answers from those conditioned to repress their true sentiments. Conducted in August, our survey was necessarily limited in scope, but it reflects a nationally representative sample of Iraqi views, as captured in four disparate cities: Basra (Iraq's second largest, home to 1.7 million people, in the far south), Mosul (third largest, far north), Kirkuk (Kurdish-influenced oil city, fourth largest) and Ramadi (a resistance hotbed in the Sunni triangle). The results show that the Iraqi public is more sensible, stable and moderate than commonly portrayed, and that Iraq is not so fanatical, or resentful of the U.S., after all. Iraqis are optimistic. Seven out of 10 say they expect their country and their personal lives will be better five years from now. On both fronts, 32 percent say things will become much better. The toughest part of reconstructing their nation, Iraqis say by 3 to 1, will be politics, not economics. They are nervous about democracy. Asked which is closer to their own view--"Democracy can work well in Iraq," or "Democracy is a Western way of doing things"--five out of 10 said democracy is Western and won't work in Iraq. One in 10 wasn't sure. And four out of 10 said democracy can work in Iraq. There were interesting divergences. Sunnis were negative on democracy by more than 2 to 1; but, critically, the majority Shiites were as likely to say democracy would work for Iraqis as not. People age 18-29 are much more rosy about democracy than other Iraqis, and women are significantly more positive than men. Asked to name one country they would most like Iraq to model its new government on from five possibilities--neighboring, Baathist Syria; neighbor and Islamic monarchy Saudi Arabia; neighbor and Islamist republic Iran; Arab lodestar Egypt; or the U.S.--the most popular model by far was the U.S. The U.S. was preferred as a model by 37 percent of Iraqis selecting from those five--more than Syria, Iran and Egypt put together. Saudi Arabia was in second place at 28 percent. Again, there were important demographic splits. Younger adults are especially favorable toward the U.S., and Shiites are more admiring than Sunnis. Interestingly, Iraqi Shiites, coreligionists with Iranians, do not admire Iran's Islamist government; the U.S. is six times as popular with them as a model for governance. Our interviewers inquired whether Iraq should have an Islamic government, or instead let all people practice their own religion. Only 33 percent want an Islamic government; a solid 60 percent say no. A vital detail: Shiites (whom Western reporters frequently portray as self-flagellating maniacs) are least receptive to the idea of an Islamic government, saying no by 66 percent to 27 percent. It is only among the minority Sunnis that there is interest in a religious state, and they are split evenly on the question. Perhaps the strongest indication that an Islamic government won't be part of Iraq's future: The nation is thoroughly secularized. We asked how often our respondents had attended the Friday prayer over the previous month. Fully 43 percent said "never." It's time to scratch "Khomeini II" from the list of morbid fears. You can also cross out "Osama II": 57 percent of Iraqis with an opinion have an unfavorable view of Osama bin Laden, with 41 percent of those saying it is a very unfavorable view. (Women are especially down on him.) Except in the Sunni triangle (where the limited support that exists for bin Laden is heavily concentrated), negative views of the al Qaeda supremo are actually quite lopsided in all parts of the country. And those opinions were collected before Iraqi police announced it was al Qaeda members who killed worshipers with a truck bomb in Najaf. And you can write off the possibility of a Baath revival. We asked "Should Baath Party leaders who committed crimes in the past be punished, or should past actions be put behind us?" A thoroughly unforgiving Iraqi public stated by 74 percent to 18 percent that Saddam's henchmen should be punished. This new evidence on Iraqi opinion suggests the country is manageable. If the small number of militants conducting sabotage and murder inside the country can gradually be eliminated by American troops (this is already happening), then the mass of citizens living along the Tigris-Euphrates Valley are likely to make reasonably sensible use of their new freedom. "We will not forget it was the U.S. soldiers who liberated us from Saddam," said Abid Ali, an auto repair shop owner in Sadr City last month--and our research shows that he's not unrepresentative. None of this is to suggest that the task ahead will be simple. Inchoate anxiety toward the U.S. showed up when we asked Iraqis if they thought the U.S. would help or hurt Iraq over a five-year period. By 50 percent to 36 percent they chose hurt over help. This is fairly understandable; Iraqis have just lived through a war in which Americans were (necessarily) flinging most of the ammunition. These experiences may explain why women (who are more antimilitary in all cultures) show up in our data as especially wary of the U.S. right now. War is never pleasant, though U.S. forces made heroic efforts to spare innocents in this one, as I illustrate with firsthand examples in my book about the battles. Evidence of the comparative gentleness of this war can be seen in our poll. Less than 30 percent of our sample of Iraqis knew or heard of anyone killed in the spring fighting. Meanwhile, fully half knew some family member, neighbor or friend who had been killed by Iraqi security forces during the years Saddam held power. Perhaps the ultimate indication of how comfortable Iraqis are with America's aims in their region came when we asked how long they would like to see American and British forces remain in their country: Six months? One year? Two years or more? Two thirds of those with an opinion urged that the coalition troops should stick around for at least another year. We're making headway in a benighted part of the world. Hang in there, America. Karl Zinsmeister is editor in chief of The American Enterprise magazine and holder of the J.B. Fuqua chair at the American Enterprise Institute. _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://scribe.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework
