Iraqis have few illusions about U.S. election Amid nightmare of violence, no strong backing for Bush or Kerry By Jim Maceda Correspondent NBC News Updated: 8:34 a.m. ET Nov. 2, 2004
BAGHDAD - If the latest nationwide poll is any indication, Iraqis are also divided when it comes to keeping President George W. Bush in power. According to a mid-October survey conducted by Baghdad's Center for Research and Strategic Studies, about 21 percent of Iraqis polled favor John Kerry for president. Some 17 percent want four more years of Bush. But, with a built-in four percent margin of error, the two candidates might well be in a dead heat in Iraq, too. But here's the rub: By an overwhelming majority of almost 60 percent, Iraqis just don't care who holds the job that will so largely influence this country's future. Iraqis too tired to care How can that be? Many Iraqis are simply too exhausted to care. Real unemployment is close to 70 percent. Security is non-existent. More than 1,000 Iraqi police and national guardsmen have been killed since January, most of them young recruits. U.S.-funded reconstruction projects have all but dried up, with both foreign contractors and Iraqi workers too afraid to show up at the sites. Managing to feed families and send kids to school despite daily bombings, assassinations, kidnappings and robberies is already enough for any reasonable human to deal with. True, those who are leaning toward Bush do so out of the belief that he will stay the course and eventually defeat the insurgents who have terrorized their lives. Ali, a leather goods shop owner in Baghdad's Karrada district - an area rife with car bomb attacks - said he'd vote for Bush. ''He's got good relations with the Iraqi government, and he's a known quantity,'' he said. Those Iraqis who favor Kerry, meanwhile, tend to think that he is less of a warmonger and more of a peacemaker. They believe that somehow a new face might bring an end to a 20-month-old deadly conflict. Nizar Hassan, a grocery store employee, thinks that Iraq would benefit from a Democrat president like Kerry, whose priorities are more domestic, without any of the visions of saving the world associated with the Bush administration. ''Kerry might calm things down,'' speculated Hassan. ''He might pull the U.S. troops off the streets and back to their bases. This would help the situation.'' But the vast numbers of Iraqis who see no difference between Bush and Kerry would likely agree with Zainab, a female medical doctor who asked that her last name not be used. ''It's the same policy, only different faces.'' _______________________________________________ RTF mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://rolltidefan.net/mailman/listinfo/rtf_rolltidefan.net
